After a delay leading to disappointment over South West Monsoon’s benefits for the city, a sharp spell of showers in July end helped in improving the storage considerably.

Siruvani with a Full Reservoir Level (FRL) of 50 ft almost witnessed near dead storage experience during the peak summer. But, the showers helped in improving the storage to 17.7 ft (as on August 28).

Considering the withdrawal ranging from 65 mld to 80 mld and the depleting quantum of loss due to evaporation, the storage is expected to help the city to steer ahead for the next two months without water scarcity.

TWAD Board officials and City’s Water supply managers are pinning hopes on the showers to continue. The dam witnessed rainfall of 34 mm on Monday and the rainfall continued on Tuesday as well.

There is a copious inflow from the Pattiaru River and Muthikulam Falls besides nearly ten other small wild streams and rivulets reaching the catchment area.

With the continuing inflow and indications of rainfall also continuing, the water supply managers expect an easy sailing for the next 60 days and expect the North East monsoon to set in by October.

Quoting Meteorologists, officials said that delay or disappointment in South West Monsoon was because of the El-Nino factor (unusual warming of the ocean surface around equatorial Pacific).

The phenomenon is often associated with bad South West Monsoons in India. The common belief and experiences in the past has been that El-Nino related monsoon failure during South West Monsoon season is normally compensated during the North East Monsoon.

Normally South West Monsoon was expected to bring heavy rain in catchment areas and hilly terrains thus improving the storage in reservoirs, while North East Monsoon used to benefit the plains more.But, records indicated that Siruvani had received even up to 1,000 mm rainfall during North East Monsoon.

Going by storage and rainfall related statistics of the past, officials pointed out that a substantial improvement in storage or even surplussing of Siruvani during the South West Monsoon and North East Monsoon supplementing the withdrawal alone would help in sailing through the next summer.

The present storage has eased the fears of an immediate water scarcity but the benefits of North East Monsoon alone would help the city avert a water scarcity during the summer season of 2013.

There had been intermittent showers in the catchments of the Parambikulam – Aliyar Project (PAP) area on Sunday and Monday, thus helping to improve storage to some extent (see graphics).The rainfall continued on Monday and Tuesday as well.

Thoonacadavu recorded 24 mm rainfall in the last 24 hours that ended at 8.30 a.m. on Tuesday, Peruvaripallam 22, Upper Nirar 24, Lower Nirar 47, Upper Aliyar 7, Manacadavu 6.9, Vettaikaranpudur 6.2, Valparai camp 13 and Sircarpathy 12.

In the last 24 hours that ended at 8.30 a.m. on Tuesday, Coimbatore district recorded a total rainfall of 79 mm and the average rainfall stood at 6.58.Pollachi recorded 3 mm, Cincona in Valparai 22, Chinna Kallar 24, Valparai PAP 13 and Valparai Taluk office 17.