CHENNAI, June 10 -- Tamil Nadu is running two weathers at once this week. In the ghat country to the west, the rain gauges are the story, with an orange alert covering the hill stretches of five districts. On the coast, the instrument that matters is the wind vane, which at Chennai's main station on Wednesday morning pointed due west and read 29.6 kilometers per hour of hot, dry air, with the temperature at 33 degrees Celsius by 8:30 and climbing.

The alert is real and the rain behind it is real. The India Meteorological Department has flagged the ghat areas of Coimbatore, Tirunelveli, Tenkasi, Theni and the Nilgiris for heavy to very heavy rainfall, a warning the national broadcaster DD News carried alongside a forecast of continued dow...