Chennai: Pedestrians and motorists waded through waterlogged streets across Chennai on Monday evening after eastward-moving storms brought moderate intensity rainfall and thunderstorms for the second consecutive day. IMD has forecast another spell of moderate rain in city and suburbs on Tuesday, but said intensity may reduce from Wednesday.On Tuesday, city and suburbs may receive moderate rain with thunderstorms and lightning during the evening/night hours. Temperatures may be around 35°C during the day and 26°C-27°C at night. Tiruvallur may also receive moderate rain at isolated places, with thunderstorms, lightning and gusty winds of 40kmph-50kmph possible at one or two places.V R Durai, director, area cyclone warning centre, IMD said the rain was being triggered by wind convergence, where winds from different directions meet and force moist air to rise, leading to convection and thunderstorms. A weather system over Odisha has been creating favourable conditions for this convergence, while a feeble trough along and off the Tamil Nadu coast in the lower tropospheric levels has been supporting rain activity.“From Wednesday, we can expect the intensity to drop to light rain spells, as monsoon revives over central India. The next round of rainfall may in the first week of Sept,” he said.On Monday evening, thunderstorms areas such as including T Nagar, Mylapore, K K Nagar and Guindy, and suburban areas such as Alandur inundated with ankle-deep water after 15 to 20 minutes of intense rain. Earlier in the day, cloudy skies brought max temperature down to 33.3°C in Nungambakkam and 32.7°C in Meenambakkam, 1.2°C and 1.9°C below normal.Sunday rainfall left the highest of 5cm each in the rain gauges in Anna Nagar West, Perambur Corporation Park, Korattur, Basin Bridge, Kasimedu and CD Hospital, Tondiarpet. In Tiruvallur, Poonamallee recorded 5cm, while Kundrathur in Kancheepuram and Kolapakkam in Chengelpet recorded 3cm each.The weekend rain pushed Chennai’s rainfall since June 1 to 28cm, around 1% above normal. But, Tiruvallur, which houses the city’s drinking-water reservoirs, remains 25% below normal at 21cm, while Kancheepuram is 33% below normal at 19cm and Chengelpet 65% below normal at 9cm.
