Madurai flood risk
Madurai's flood risk is dam-release-driven, not rainfall-driven. The Vaigai's natural catchment is small (2,253 sq km); urban inundation tracks Vaigai-dam outflows on a 12-24 hour lag. There is no public CFM-DSS-equivalent sensor mesh - upstream context comes from CWC and the dam-level scrape.
~6,000 cusec releases from Vaigai dam saturate the downtown channel between Albert Victor bridge and Anuppanadi. Below this threshold the Vaigai bed absorbs the flow; above it, low-lying wards (Sellur, Avaniyapuram, Anuppanadi) start flooding.
Recent flood events · 2
Downtown Madurai inundated; Avaniyapuram and Sellur worst-hit; release coincided with peak rainfall in the catchment.
Significant Vaigai-bed inundation; upstream-tank cascade overflow into peri-urban kanmoi.
ScienceDirect (Vaigai flood-frequency analysis) →External monitoring sources · 2
We don't republish these; tracking dam-gauge live state lives elsewhere. These are the operational portals to use during a flood event.
What we don't have (Madurai)
- No CFM-DSS-equivalent sensor mesh (Chennai has ARG/AWS/AWLR/gate sensor network; Madurai does not)
- No public flood hazard zone GeoJSON (5/10/25/50/100/200-year return period polygons)
- No public 2018/2023 hotspot inventory (RTI-needed from MMC)
- Flood inundation depth raster - not modeled publicly for Madurai
Chennai's flood-risk page renders modeled hazard zones, 2015/2020 hotspots, drainage and sewerage overlays - none of which exist publicly for this city. This page surfaces what's actually available rather than papering over the gap with synthetic data.