The recent showers in the catchment areas of Siruvani
reservoir has brought an end to the city’s fear of an impending water
scarcity, as the present storage will help in meeting drinking water
needs of Coimbatore City and a number of way side habitations for the
next two months.

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.