12 Kolkata: While the maximum temperature hovered below the normal mark, the high moisture content pushed up the discomfort level in Kolkata on Monday. The high humidity led to a massive gap between the actual temperature and the real-feel, with the latter being higher by around 15 notches.
The Met office has ruled out the chance of rain for now and issued a heatwave warning for some western districts. Even though Kolkata will escape the heatwave conditions, the city will reel under heat and humidity for now.
When the Alipore Met office recorded a maximum temperature of 34.4°C on Monday, the real-feel, according to IMD's weather app Mausam, showed the ‘feels like' temperature at 49°C. The Met officials said this wide gap was due to the high relative humidity, which shot up to 64% around that time.
"Whenever the humid content is high, it pushes up the discomfort level. That is the phenomenon happening at present. We expect the moisture content to start dropping by Tuesday. But since there is no rain at least in the next four to five days, we can expect another phase of heat and humid weather in the city," said HR Biswas, the head of the weather forecast section at the Regional Meteorological Centre, Kolkata.
The last time the gap between the actual temperature and the real-feel was high was about a week ago. At that time, the difference was about nine notches, compared to 15 notches this time. The Met officials said the city was currently getting the moist southerly wind at the lower level, which is injecting a high volume of moisture from the Bay of Bengal.
On the other hand, the dry northwesterly wind is breezing in at the upper level. The Met officials said that the convergence of these two wind systems is required over the Kolkata sky for the city to get rain.