Depression over southwest Bay of Bengal and that was 30 km southeast of Chennai has started crossing the north Tamil Nadu coast and south Andhra Pradesh coast on Thursday evening. It was moving at a speed of 16 km per hour during the past six hours.
S. Balachandran, Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Chennai, said it would take another two hours for the system to completely cross the coast around Chennai. “We can’t say exact location for landfall and crossing of depression unlike cyclones. Rainfall would continue till Friday morning,” he said.
Surface wind gusting up to 40 km per hour may prevail over coastal areas of Chennai, Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu, Villupuram, Tiruvallur till Thursday night. The weather system may bring heavy to very heavy rainfall over one or two places of districts such as Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Villupuram, Ranipet, Vellore, Chengalpattu and Tiruvannamalai.
The Meteorological department has withdrawn red alert for extremely heavy rains for Chennai and neighbouring districts. However, warning for strong surface winds and heavy rains would continue, he said. Rains would begin to recede from Friday. Chennai Nungambakkam received 6.3 cm between 8.30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Other places such as Meenambakkam and Ennore too recorded rains of 4 cm each.
Meanwhile, the Tiruvallur district administration has increased water release from Poondi reservoir to 9,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) at 4 p.m. as the water body received a heavy inflow of 11,000 cusecs.
