CHENNAI: May has been particularly hard on Chennaiites this year with temperatures consistently hovering over 40° and the summer showers giving the city a miss. Sudden rainfall after a spell of torrid, sweaty days is something people have begun to expect as a regular occurrence. According to the weathermen, the problem was that there was nothing to trigger the rain. “Heat and moisture is not enough to bring on the rain, it needs a trigger mechanism. This hasn’t happened this year,” said Y E A Raj, Deputy Director General of Meteorology at the Regional Meteorological Centre. This trigger could even be a strong sea breeze, explained Raj, “But this year the sea breeze has been very weak,” he said. The rainfall this year has been negligibly low in comparison to the previous few summers. According to statistics with the RMC, the city has received only 2mm of rainfall this summer, which is a far cry from the copious showers that accompanied Hurricane Laila in 2010.The Meteorology Department said that other parts of Tamil Nadu had received some rain, but as far as Chennai was concerned, there was no chance of any rain in the next few days. “When the south west monsoon sets, the temperature will drop to less than 40°C,” said Raj.
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