Southwest monsoon becomes active in Coimbatore, Siruvani storage up

The rains have brought some relief to water managers as the dipping water level in Siruvani Dam, which serves as a main source of drinking water to the city, has become a matter of concern. 

After a dry spell since the start of south west monsoon season on June 3 in Kerala, the district recorded its first rains of 0.5 mm on Saturday. Then, Coimbatore received around 2.5 mm of rain on Monday morning and it may go up to 6 mm for the whole day. For the next few days, it has been forecast that the district would receive up to 8 mm per day. 

“The entire month of June is likely to experience only drizzles and the monsoon would gather pace to pour out only in July. We expect to receive 200 mm as against the average 210 mm for this year,” said Dr SP Ramanathan, head of the Agro Climate Research Centre of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU). 

“The catchment areas in Siruvani Dam have received slightly better rains by recording 52 mm on Saturday and 12 mm on Sunday. Water level in the dam is slowly inching upwards from 12.99 feet on Saturday to 13.33 feet on Sunday. It was 13.12 feet on Monday,” said an official of TWAD. 

However, storage situation in the dam is much better as compared to last year on this same day on Monday, when the water level was just one metre above the dead storage level of 863.40 metres. 

Currently, the storage level is four metres above the dead storage level. The situation is much better. As on Sunday, around 67 MLD of water was drawn from the dam as against the usual 101 MLD.