Under the influence of the progressing monsoon, isolated heavy rain has been predicted over Kerala, Lakshadweep, coastal Karnataka and South coastal Andhra Pradesh during the next 48 hours, weathermen here said.
“Moderate to heavy rain” is also likely to occur at many places over all districts of Tamil Nadu, which traditionally used to get the bulk of its annual rainfall from the returning North-East Monsoon in October-December. This is a grim pointer to the rapidly changing weather pattern.
Cloudy skies interspersed with thunder showers has been marking Chennai’s rather unusual weather conditions in the last two days, though the rain has come as a relief in terms of a sharp drop in day temperatures.
The slushy roads have considerably slowed down vehicular traffic in the city.
In the last 24 hours ending 8:30 am on Friday, Pondicherry airport recorded a maximum rainfall of 12 cm, weathermen said. Kollidam in Tamil Nadu’s Nagapattinam district recorded the second highest rainfall of 9 cm, followed by Melaluthur (Vellore district) and Orathanad (Thanjavur district) with 8 cm each.
Quilandy in Kozhikode in Kerala and Haliyal in Uttara Kannada district experienced an appreciable 7 cm of rainfall each.