Chennai: Chennaiites who have been facing mixed weather conditions for the past one-week woke up to mild showers on Saturday morning.
By noon parts of north and Central Chennai recorded rain for about two hours resulting in traffic snarls.
Water logging along the arterial Poonamalee high road and Anna Salai added to the peak hour traffic.
However, normal life was not affected in south Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur as these regions recorded mild showers. Though there have been intermittent rains across the state covering all the districts for the past two weeks, Kanyakumari and Ramanathapuram districts remained as districts with large deficit in rainfall.
According to PWD sources, in the past five days Kancheepuram district received good rains but inflow in to lakes remained negligible. Despite Chembarambakkam receiving close to 12 cm rainfall in the past one week, there are no signs of relief from drought. More than 80 per cent of the lakes in the district are still dry and the Kulavai lake in Chengalpet is the only lake with 40 per cent of storage water.
The state is also examining the feasibility to tapping water from Kulavai lake, PWD sources said. In the meantime, a high level PWD team led by chief engineers are also to visit adjacent Andhra Pradesh seeking release of water from Kandaleru to meet drinking water needs of Chennai city.
With the onset of monsoon and intermittent rains in the state the mosquito density had also considerably increased in all tier one cities particularly Coimbatore and Chennai, a state official said.
