North-South divide in rain pattern as city gets sharp shower spells
Times of India | 7 August 2024
Kolkata: A cyclonic circulation over Gangetic West Bengal and adjoining Bangladesh triggered some sharp spells of rain on Tuesday. While Alipore recorded only 6.5 mm of rain, Dum Dum recorded over 10 times the amount. A heavy shower of 76 mm in and around Kolkata airport caused inundation in areas like Haldiram on VIP Road. The Met officials said the uneven rain distribution was mainly due to the thunderstorm nature of the showers.
With the monsoon trough still passing through the state over Contai and Purulia, the Met office expects more such showers in the coming days.
Most of the showers in the city on Tuesday happened between 1 pm and 3 pm. It was not only the south and north divide as far was the rain amount is concerned. At both ends of the city, some localities got heavier rain that the rest. While localities like Ultadanga and Maniktala got 21 mm of rain, localities like Belgachia got only 14 mm of rain. In south while areas like Mominpore got 23 mm of rain, Ballygunge locality was almost dry.
H R Biswas, head of the weather section at Regional Meteorological Centre Kolkata, explained that a strong system like low pressure area or a depression is capable of triggering more uniform rain pattern.
“Tuesday’s rain was due to thunderstorm activity due to which intensity of rain was different from one locality to another. In such a case the rain intensity can be different in localities which are only three to four kilometres apart. During monsoon there can be a lot of convection within the monsoon cloud triggering such uneven rain,” said Biswas.
The heavy downpour in Dum Dum left the service road near Haldiram junction on VIP Road in knee-deep water. The stretch towards Chinar Park from Haldiram was also waterlogged affecting traffic movement for hours. Despite the PWD’s attempt at pumping out storm water the area remained waterlogged till evening. Traffic crawled for hours leaving commuters, specially to and for the airport, in deep anxiety.
The heavy spell of rain also caused waterlogging in Sector V around Technopolis in Salt Lake, throwing traffic out of gear for hours in the busy evening office hours where it took around 25 minutes for commuters to negotiate the stretch.“We can expect one or two spells of rain daily. From Saturday we expect the showers be wider in coverage and higher in intensity,” added Biswas. The Met office has issued heavy rain warning for north Bengal districts.