Chennai Weather: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a mix of yellow and orange alerts for heavy to very heavy rainfall in Tamil Nadu, including the capital Chennai.
The weather department has said that the rainfall is most likely as a deep depression over the southwest Bay of Bengal is moving northwestwards.
In a post on X on Saturday morning, the IMD said, "The deep depression over southwest Bay of Bengal moved west-northwestwards with a speed of 12 kmph during the past 6 hours, weakened into a Depression and lay centred at 0530 hours IST of today, the 10th January, 2026, over southwest Bay of Bengal off northeast Sri Lanka coast."
"It is likely to continue to move west-northwestwards and cross the north Sri Lanka coast between Trincomalee and Jaffna as a depression around noon/afternoon of today, 10th January, 2026,” the IMD added.
Orange Alert: The orange alert has been issued for the Thiruvarur, Karaikal, and Nagapattinam districts.
Yellow Alert: A yellow alert has been sounded in Chennai, Thanjavur, Sivagangai, Madurai and Thiruchirapalli.
High wave alert
In an earlier bulletin, the IMD had issued a high wave alert for the coastlines of Karaikal and Nagapattam. According to the met department bulletin, the high waves are expected to be in the range of up to 3.1 metres.
The weather department has also issued a warning of squally weather with wind speed reaching up to 65 kmph along the Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka coast and the Gulf of Mannar.
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Due to the depression, sea conditions are likely to be rough over the southwest Bay of Bengal & adjoining areas of the east equatorial Indian Ocean.
Forecast for Sunday
For Sunday (January 11), the IMD has predicted a heavy rainfall in isolated areas over Chennai, Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur, and Villupuram.