Rain-starved Tamil Nadu hopes for unborn Vardah as Nada dies

CHENNAI: After Nada fizzled out early on Friday, Tamil Nadu is staring at a drought-like condition. And the only hope it sees on the horizon, ironically, is another possible cyclonic storm.
Making a soft landfall around 5am near Karaikal, Nada had lost strength so much that it neither brought rain nor harm. Storms may be destructive for some, but the water managers have other problems to deal with: Despite formation of two cyclonic storms -Kyant and Nada and a depression over the Bay of Bengal this season -Chennai received only 11cm rainfall against the normal of 71cm, marking a deficit of 84%.Tamil Nadu got 11.5cm against the normal rainfall of 36.1cm (68% deficit).
Weathermen are tracking a weather formation over the Bay of Bengal which may turn into a cyclone by Sunday . If it does, it will be named Vardah by Pakistan, as per the Internatio nal Meteorological Convention. Earlier cyclonic storms Kyant was named by Myanmar and Nada by Oman.
Meterologists say Vardah could be the only hope of reducing the rain deficit. The 10cm rainfall received during October-November was the lowest recorded in 150 years. In 1876, the city had recorded 12cm during October-November, as per the IMD. Nada brought less than 8cm rainfall from Thursday to Friday. The showers are likely to continue until Saturday evening but the predicted intermittent showers may not bring much to the city's water sources. Worse, weathermen are not optimistic that even if Vardah takes shape, many parts of Tamil Nadu, including Chennai, may not get sufficient rain.
Skymet chief meteorologist Mahesh Palawat said, “ A cyclonic storm is likely to form over the southeast Bay of Bengal on December 4. It could intensify in the following days and make landfall on the Andhra-Orissa coast by December 9. Tamil Nadu may get rainfall if the storm comes close to its coast.“ Weather models indicate that the system is currently crossing the Malay peninsula and is likely to move towards the Andaman and Nicobar Is lands. Palawat said, “If the cyclonic storm fails to bring rainfall to Tamil Nadu, the state is likely to remain dry for at least 10 days.“ Scant rainfall has not helped the city reservoirs that have reached dead storage. After the moderate rainfall over the last two days, the combined levels of the reservoirs only improved from 7% to 7.5% of the total capacity . In comparison, the storage was 92% last year. Chennai-based weather blogger Pradeep John offers some hope. John said, “Northeast monsoon, which usually ends by December, could extend to January this time.There are indications that this could be a La Nina year (weak er monsoon). There are also signs of a negative Indian Ocean dipole (irregular oscillation of sea surface temperatures) phase. One of these two factors could disrupt the monsoon pattern, leading to an extension.“
John points to similar signs during the 2013 northeast monsoon when a depression over the bay brought the state as much as 25cm rainfall (in some parts, including Papanasam). Heavy rainfall occurred in January 2014 after the 2013 northeast monsoon spilled over to the following month.Four cyclones passed the TN coast between October and December 2013 without bringing much rainfall to the state.