Heavy rain to lash HCMC until weekend

In the next two days, the trough, which lies off the south-central coast, will cause heavy rains in the afternoon and evening across the southern region, said Le Dinh Quyet, deputy head of the forecasting department at the Southern Region Hydro-Meteorological Center.

Heavy rains in collaboration with seasonal tides will cause urban flooding in HCMC, according to the center.

HCMC received the heaviest rainfall of the year on Monday.

Lasting for four hours, the rainfall was measured at 113 millimeters at a station on Ly Thuong Kiet Street of District 10.

A total 47 streets across the city were flooded, including those in the downtown area of districts 1 and 3, turning traffic into chaos.

According to HCMC Infrastructure Management Center, the high rain volume exceeded the designed capacity of the city’s drainage system, further affected by a multitude of construction sites.

Quyet said the rainy season has arrived earlier this year with higher rain volume due to impacts of the La Nina phenomenon, which is the periodic cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific.

The amount of rainfall in HCMC so far this rainy season, which started in late April, has surpassed the level measured at the same period last year by 200-400 millimeters.