Kolkata weather: Get ready to sweat it out as heat and humidity grip the city
Telegraph | 3 June 2025
Two halves of Bengal will experience contrasting weather over the next few days.
The hills are likely to keep getting drenched though the intensity of the showers will go down from Tuesday, according to the Met forecast.
The occasional shower is not ruled out in south Bengal. But the forecast is for “hot and humid weather”.
Calcutta on Monday got a taste of what is in store for the next few days.
The Met office recorded a maximum temperature of 37 degrees Celsius in Alipore.
On Friday, the maximum temperature was 32 degrees. On Thursday, a deep depression on the Bay landed in South 24-Parganas’ Raidighi before moving towards Bangladesh. But the conditions were still overcast in and around Calcutta.
The Celsius has been on the rise since Saturday. On Monday, the minimum relative humidity dropped marginally but there was still enough moisture to make conditions uncomfortable.
It was difficult to be in the open without an umbrella or scarf or any other improvised head shield.
A Met bulletin on Monday said an upper air cyclonic circulation was over east Bihar and the neighbourhood at 1.5km above mean sea level. A trough runs from east Uttar Pradesh to northeast Assam across central parts of Bihar, north Bengal, Sikkim and Assam at 0.9km above mean sea level, it said.
“Thunderstorms are still expected in north Bengal but the intensity of rainfall is likely to reduce. In south Bengal, hot and humid conditions are likely. Dry westerly winds will prevail in the lower level in some districts,” said a Met official.
“Light to moderate rain/thundershower is still likely in Jhargram, Nadia, Murshidabad, East and West Midnapore, North and South-24 Parganas districts. Hot and humid weather very likely to prevail over Jhargram, Calcutta, Howrah, Hooghly, East and West Midnapore, North and South 24-Parganas districts of south Bengal,” he added.
The southwest monsoon made a premature entry in north Bengal on Thursday.
Monsoon’s usual arrival date in north Bengal is June 5. For south Bengal, the date is June 10.
The southwest monsoon hit Kerala on May 24, marking its earliest arrival over the Indian mainland since 2009, when it reached the southern state on May 23.
On Monday, the northern line of monsoon was passing through Balurghat in North Dinajpur, said an IMD report.
“There is no direct correlation between the arrival of monsoon in north Bengal and south Bengal. Often, a system on the Bay propels the monsoon currents into mainland. But there is no such system brewing on the Bay now,” said a Met official.
Last year, monsoon had set foot in north Bengal on May 31. But it entered Calcutta on June 21.