Dense fog engulfs city suburbs in wee hours
CHENNAI: Dense fog covered the suburbs of Chennai in the wee hours of Saturday, causing visibility issues for motorists. Bloggers state that the cause of the fog could be the rising temperature ahead of summer. According to weather experts, dry weather and increasing temperatures across the city and State are expected for the rest of the week.
According to weather blogger K Srikanth, who runs the page ChennaiRains, the high temperatures in the city has led to the increased fog. “This is what we call radiation fog. The previous day had been very warm in the city and the State. The ground had absorbed the heat during the day and released it at night, and due to the cool weather, condensation of the moisture occurred. This fog was dense and remained very close to ground level. Without any wind, the fog did not dissipate. Additionally, the intensity of radiation fogs increases throughout the night, ” he said.
According to data released by the Regional Meteorological Department,
Chennai is expected to see a maximum temperature of 34°C and a minimum temperature of 22°C over the next 48 hours, with partially cloudy skies.
At the same time, to provide more clear information and data on rainfall patterns in the city, the director of the Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai, S Balachandran, inaugurated an Automatic Rain Gauge Station that was established at Good Will School, Villivakkam on
Thursday. “This ARG has a tipping bucket rain gauge, which consists of a funnel that collects and channels the precipitation into a small seesaw-like container. After a pre-set amount of precipitation falls, the lever tips, dumping the collected water and sending an electrical signal. The system will record accumulated rainfall and will transmit the data to the desired server at user-defined time intervals, ” said an official.