CHENNAI: The month of May has proven itself as the hottest month of the year. On Sunday, the temperature reached a maximum temperature of 39.6 degrees Celsius at 2.30pm. On Saturday, the maximum temperature was 39.5 degrees C.
"While Saturday was blazing hot, Sunday was not so bad. The skies were over cast and did not feel as hot as Saturday," said C Shiva, resident of T Nagar.
Officials from Met department say this is because of 'advection radiation' - heat being transported through wind. "The city gets hot in two ways. One is direct heating by the sun and the other is from hot winds from other areas. We had local cloud formation in Chennai but hot air was blowing from the west, causing the temperature to go up," said Y E A Raj, deputy director general of India Meteorological Department.
Meanwhile, the system on Bay of Bengal has been classified as 'Cyclone Mahasen' on Saturday night. "It is around 800km south east of Chennai coast. At 11.30am on Saturday, it was at a distance of 1,230 km," said a duty officer from regional meteorological centre. It is expected to hit the coast of Bangladesh in the next three days. "The cyclone will not bring any rain to Chennai but it takes away the moisture from the city and the.reby increasing the temperature further," said the duty officer.
Meanwhile, the minimum temperature on Sunday was 29.9 degrees Celsius.
Chennaiites might experience warm weather for a few days more. Relief is not in sight yet as the movement of the year’s first cyclone Mahasen is still unclear. While Mahasen has followed the pattern of the track taken by cyclone Laila that made landfall north of Chennai and brought copious rain to Tamil Nadu in 2010, it is now expected to recurve and move northwards and go beyond Bangladesh.
However, the chances of Mahasen weakening to dissipate over the sea itself and not reach its predicted destination in the northeast cannot be ruled out either.
Come what may, the people of Chennai would have to bear with the ‘Kathiri’ season. While Nungambakkam registered 39.5 degree Celsius on Saturday, it went up by 0.1 degree to 39.6 degree Celsius on Sunday. “So long as the system remains near Bay of Bengal, there will be warm weather,” said Dr Y.E.A. Raj, deputy director general of meteorology, Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC), Chennai.
“Due to the cyclone, there was some clouding in Chennai. But still temperature went up because of the westerly winds. If we get a band of clouds on Monday the radiation could then be cut off,” he added. However, Met office has issued a heat wave warning across Tamil Nadu, noting that the temperature might stay four to five degrees above the average May month temperature of 36 degree Celsius.
On the other hand, it has also instructed ports to hoist Distant Cautionary Signal (DC No.2) warning at Chennai, Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Pamban, Ennore, Puducherry, Kattupalli and Thoothukudi.
“We will sweat a lot on Monday as the humidity will be very high. The heat will be trapped within the earth and so we will feel uncomfortable. In the evening, there are chances of a little rain and hailstorm,” said K. Rajesh, an amateur weatherman who tracks cyclone with his inexpensive HAM radio set.
While noting that nature is very unpredictable and we cannot compare one cyclone with another, Rajesh said that size wise the current cyclone can be compared to Laila. “Both the cyclones were huge, spanning 800 kms,” he added.
Source:TOI / Deccan Chronicle
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