Kolkata: Around 116.5 mm of rain in the past 24 hours made Friday the wettest day in Kolkata this monsoon. The downpour was triggered by a depression that came as close as 80 km to the south of the city. The Met office has predicted the possibility of a few more intense rain spells until Saturday morning, during which some districts are likely to be continuously pounded by heavy rain. Even after the depression moves away from the region, a renewed monsoon flow is expected to trigger rain in the next few days.
What started as a low-pressure area in the Bay of Bengal on Thursday intensified into a depression on Friday morning. Heavy rain spells started pounding the city and surrounding areas by late Thursday night, flooding various pockets. With the current spell adding to the rain tally of Kolkata, which stood at 693 mm till Friday, the city has already received close to 52% of the normal cumulative seasonal rain count of 1,345.5 mm.
"While Friday was the wettest day this season in terms of rain count, we have had two other very significant rainy days this July, which pushed up the total rain amount for the season. Between the beginning of June and July 25, the normal rain count in Kolkata is 589 mm, against which we have already recorded 693 mm, which is a surplus," said H R Biswas, head of the weather forecast section at the Regional Meteorological Centre, Kolkata.
Climatologically, Kolkata should get a monthly rain count of 396 mm in July, which is considered the rainiest monsoon month. This July, the city has already received 451.5 mm of rainfall. Before Friday, the wettest monsoon day this month was on July 8, when Alipore recorded 87.5 mm of rainfall.
Many localities in the city registered above 100 mm of rain in the past 24 hours, including Salt Lake with 133 mm, Manicktala 177 mm, Thanthania 158 mm, Ballygunge 114 mm, and Dhapa Lock Gate with 137 mm until Friday evening. "The monsoon trough now passes through Chandigarh, Bareilly, Gorakhpur, Patna, Bankura and Kolkata. The centre of the depression is over the northwest Bay of Bengal, and adjoining areas of coastal Bengal and Bangladesh," said a special IMD bulletin.
"There still is a possibility of some intense showers in Kolkata until the first half of Saturday. But this depression has already renewed the monsoon flow, and hence even if the intensity decreases thereafter, we can expect more rain in the following days," added Biswas. Both the maximum and minimum temperatures plunged below the normal mark on Friday, which stood at 30.1°C and 25.7°C, respectively. According to the Met office, the depression is likely to move west-northwestwards across Gangetic Bengal and adjoining north Odisha and Jharkhand by Saturday.