Thunderstorm brings relief after 29 days but waterlogging pain gives city a reality check
Times of India | 7 May 2024
Kolkata: Even as dark clouds and a gentle breeze wafted across Kolkata for most of Monday, the city waited on tenterhooks for its first sign of rain in 29 days, which finally came in the form of scattered drizzles at 7 pm and turned into a heavy downpour that lashed the parched city for more than two hours. The rain was accompanied by regular thunder strikes.It brought relief to the scorched city which endured a 17-day heatwave spell.
In Alipore, the Met office recorded 50.6mm rain in over two hours. The squall struck with a wind speed of 50 kmph and reached a maximum of 77 kmph at 9 pm. Earlier in the day, the Met had issued a red alert for Kolkata, along with East Midnapore, West Midnapore, Nadia and the two 24 Parganas, and warned of a squall with a wind speed of 60-70 kmph along with light to moderate rain. The Met office has predicted heavier showers and a thunderstorm on Tuesday.
Before the rain, Monday saw the maximum temperature — at 35.4°C — falling just below the normal mark after going up by seven and a half notches above the normal during the peak of the heatwave. For Monday, the forecast predicted rain along with gusty winds of 40-50 kmph. “We are likely to see heavier rain during Tuesday’s thunderstorm. After that, the rainfall is likely to start trickling to smaller isolated spells over the course of the week,” said Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) head of weather H R Biswas.
On Monday, three systems made the conditions favourable for a thunderstorm — two troughs from south Jharkhand to west Madhya Pradesh at 0.9km above mean sea level and a cyclonic circulation over the same area.
Thunderstorms on Monday and Tuesday are likely to deliver a significant portion of the 118.5 mm of rainfall that Kolkata typically sees in May. The forecast of week-long rain is especially welcome after April only saw less than 1% of its normal monthly rain count of 57.1 mm.
The maximum temperature is likely to dip to about 34°C on Tuesday while the minimum is likely to hover around 27° C after staying at around 29°C for the last three weeks.