Only a few reservoirs received heavy rainfall during Monday and the early hours of Tuesday though many parts of the State had a taste of how intense the northeast monsoon could be.
Chembarambakkam, a tank located southwest of Chennai and the focus of the Chennai floods in December 2015, registered around 18 cm and Papanasam, an important reservoir in the Tirunelveli district, received 16 cm.
The two water bodies registered an inflow, varying from 1,719 cubic feet per second (cusecs) to 1,526 cusecs.
In terms of storage, Chembarambakkam’s present volume of water is merely over 10% of its total capacity and Papanasam’s, around 30%. This morning, Chembarambakkam’s storage was 452 million cubic feet (mcft.) against the capacity of 3,645 mcft. while the other reservoir had 1,730 mcft. against the capacity of 5,500 mcft.
Pointing out that the storage was not even 15% of the capacity, officials of the Water Resources Department (WRD) in the Public Works Department (PWD) said more rain was needed so that the reservoir gets filled.
As the Nungambakkam observatory recorded 12 cm and Meenambakkam 17 cm during the 24 hour period that ended at 8.30 a.m. on Tuesday, it was quite likely that the river would have received some amount of the rain.
“There are 18 drains falling into the river including 8 maintained by Chennai Corporation and these drains have contributed to the rise in the water level of the river,” an official explained.
The Red Hills reservoir received around 10 cm and registered 1,643 cusecs.
Its storage stood at 487 mcft. against the storage of 3,300 mcft. Cholavaram, another city reservoir, recorded around 10 cm and the Satyamurti Sagar in Poondi around 4 cm.
