Tamil Nadu may experience scattered rains from December 25: IMD

Tamil Nadu may experience scattered rains from December 25: IMD

Rainfall may be restricted over isolated places over Tamil Nadu till the weekend. There may be an increase in rainfall in the State and Puducherry from Christmas day. However, there are no prospects of heavy rains for the next five days. The Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai, has said that light to moderate rains are likely to occur at one or two places over the State and dry weather may largely prevail in most places till Sunday. From Christmas day, more locations in the State may be covered with light to moderate rains.

A cyclonic circulation lies over the equatorial ocean and adjoining southwest Bay of Bengal.

S.Balachandran, Additional Director General of Meteorology, Chennai, said strong easterly winds that would influence moisture incursion would bring scattered rains in the State between December 25 and December 28.

Coastal belt would begin to receive rainfall and rain bands would move to interior areas, he said. The RMC has also noted that there is a possibility of mist/haze cover in some places during early morning hours, including Chennai, on Saturday. Mr.Balachandran said this was seasonal and experienced during transition period towards winter and also due to cloudless condition.

While the same weather trend of light or moderate rains may continue in some parts of the State till the year end, the RMC said it is monitoring Northeast monsoon for withdrawal. Though RMC treated December 31 as the official end of the monsoon, there have been occasions when the monsoon spilled over to January next year.

On Friday, none of the weather stations recorded rainfall till 7 p.m. Tamil Nadu has so far received 45.3 cm of rainfall, which is 6% excess than its seasonal average of 42.7 cm since October 1. Some of the districts like Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri had rain deficit of over 40% as the weather systems did not cover the region.