Rain brings cheer to city residents

By T. Ramakrishnan

CHENNAI, NOV. 2. The moderate rainfall that greeted Chennai and suburbs early on Friday has brought cheer to the water-starved city residents who are hoping that this spell will mark the commencement of the season's heavy rain.

Chennai registered 3 cm, while Chembarampakkam, one of the sources for the city, recorded 2 cm and Tamaraipakkam, Meenambakkam, Cholavaram and Red Hills one cm each.

After a week-long dry spell, the resumption of the rainfall activity is characteristic of the present northeast monsoon. During the season, normally there is a gap between one spell and another, the gap getting prolonged at times. Rain accompany cyclonic systems in the Bay, though not necessarily depressions.

Another feature of the season is that November accounts for 40 per cent of the season's rainfall while October gets another 40 per cent and December the rest. Moreover, the first week of November is the wet period of this month.

Nungambakkam and Meenambakkam receive, on an average, 75 cm to 77 cm during October to December. As on date, the two observatories received 44 cm and 45 cm respectively.

Meanwhile, thanks to last month's rain, six well fields, agglomerate of numerous deep borewells in the northern and northwestern fringes of the city, have seen rise in water levels. The increase in the levels varies from half a metre to around 4.5 metres.

Tamaraipakkam, where 30 deep borewells are located, has experienced the highest rise of 4.7 metres. In fact, one of the wells, was completely dry early last month. When officials of Metrowater went there to take the readings late last month, they found that there was availability of water and the water level was 1.86 metres.

The level in Three well fields - Poondi, Flood Plains and Kannagiper - went up by about 1.5 metres in a month. In the case of Panjetty and Minjur, it was only around half a metre.

The news of the increase in the well fields has pleased the city water managers as Metrowater has been heavily dependent upon the wellfields and surrounding spots for the daily supply. Of around 135 million litres a day (MLD), 95 MLD is contributed by these areas. This morning, the combined storage of the city reservoirs - Poondi, Cholavaram, Red Hills and Chembarampakkam - stood at 1.8 tmc ft. Interestingly, this was about half-a-tmc ft more than the storage on the corresponding day last year.

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