Capital city of Tamil Nadu has rained non-stop for more than 15hours. Today, it is raining nearly at the rate of 25-30mm per hour since morning. The airport observatory at Meenambakkam recorded a deluge of 250mm rainfall in 24hr, ending 8.30 a.m. Between 8.30 a.m and 2.30pm, another 108mm rainfall has been added and it continues to rain incessantly. The blinding rains are accompanied with gale speed gusty winds.
Earlier, the city far exceeded its normal rainfall in November. Average rainfall in December drops significantly and amounts to about 191mm. The city has amassed a huge total of 460mm rainfall till 2.30 pm today, in this month. Heavy rains are continuing, without break and it may surpass earlier monthly record of 542mm in December 2015. In that month, the observatory at airport had recorded massive 345mm rainfall in 24hr on 02nd Dec 2015.
Cyclonic storm has already crossed abeam Chennai in the forenoon hours today. However the intense rains are nearly non-stop. Coastal inundation due to storm surge, over and above the astronomical tide has resulted water logging in the low lying areas. Stagnating water level will rise further and extend over areas deep inland, far away from the coast. Deadly combination of high speed winds and torrential rains will continue to disrupt the air operations and also impact rail and road traffic. In fact, as per reports, Chennai airport has been closed until 11:30 PM tonight due to inclement weather conditions.
The storm is now centered about over 100km east-northeast of Chennai. As it happens quite often, the satellite center and synoptic center of the storm are not matching. The synoptic center is lying outside the Cloud Dense Overcast (CDO). Therefore, extremely heavy rains are continuing even after the storm has crossed east abeam city. Convective cluster of tall thunder clouds is hanging around overhead to far fringes to the south of the city. Accordingly, heavy to very heavy rains will continue for the next 6-9 hours.
