Kolkata: The city woke up to a grey sky and a drizzle that persisted till the afternoon on Saturday, following spells of moderate overnight rain caused by two weather systems. The rain and cloud cover pushed the maximum temperature down to 21.1 degrees Celsius, while the minimum temperature rose to 19.2 degrees Celsuis, four notches above normal, narrowing the gap to 1.9°C.
While the minimum temperature was likely to recede by a couple of degrees on Sunday when the clouds recede, it would be the other way round for the day temperature, said the Met office. Even as the city weather is likely to be dry from Sunday with no rain threat, the Met office has predicted a thick fog cover over Kolkata and Gangetic districts, including Howrah, South and North 24 Parganas and Hooghly, in the morning. The sky, too, is predicted to stay partly cloudy every day till Christmas.
A western disturbance originating in the northwestern part of the subcontinent and a well-marked low-pressure area over the southwest and adjoining west-central Bay of Bengal caused the rain and the clouds, halting the chilly northwesterly winds that had pulled the mercury down to 12.5°C in the city last week. "The interaction of a trough created by the western disturbance and easterly winds from the low-pressure system led to the clouds that moved over south Bengal. We expect the clouds to recede by Sunday afternoon, and the minimum temperature to start sliding. It could settle around 17°C on Sunday, but the chill will not return immediately. We expect another western disturbance to move in next week that could push the mercury up again and lead to cloud formation. The chill could be missing at least till Christmas," said Regional Meteorological Centre weather scientist H R Biswas.