Midnight thunderstorm uproots 22 trees, mostly in south Calcutta, say KMC officials
Telegraph | 29 March 2026
A thunderstorm struck Calcutta and neighbouring districts around midnight on Friday, the second in less than two days.
The rain was minimal, but the howling winds and frequent streaks of lightning persisted for some time. The gusts were strong enough to fell several trees.
The storm uprooted around 22 trees, said officials of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC). Most of the trees fell in south Calcutta.
The Met office said Dum Dum received a squall between 12.29am and 12.30am on Saturday, with a peak wind speed of 61kmph. The peak wind speed at Alipore was 47kmph.
“The track of the winds is not uniform during a storm. Sagar Island in South 24-Parganas recorded a maximum wind speed of 76kmph. The winds in, say, Behala, may have been stronger than they were in Alipore,” said a Met official.
The Met office can record parameters only in places where it has an observatory.
In Calcutta, there could be gusty winds on Sunday and Monday. “On Tuesday, another spell of thunderstorm is more likely,” said a Met official.
“As per information that has reached us, about 22 trees were uprooted. Branches of six more trees were damaged,” a KMC official said on Saturday morning.
Some of the trees blocked roads, but since the storm was around midnight, traffic was not disrupted, police said.
“Our teams worked through the night and on Saturday morning to clear the trees that had blocked portions of roads and pavements,” said the civic official.
KMC sources said trees fell on Hazra Road and Shyamananda Road in Bhowanipore, at Jinjira Bazar and in Joka, among other places.
At New Alipore’s BL Saha Road, a tree fell inside a housing complex. A KMC team was sent to chop the tree into smaller parts and clear the space.
“Most of the trees were large or mid-sized. The uprooted trees included Krishnachura, Kadam and Banyan trees,” said the official.
Many advertisement billboards bore the scars of the storm. On Saturday morning, they had the flexes ripped apart.
The Met office recorded around 10mm of rain in Alipore. The winds dragged the minimum temperature down to 20.2 degrees Celsius, four notches below normal, on Saturday morning. A day ago, it was almost 26 degrees Celsius.
The storm was attributed to increased moisture incursion and a favourable wind pattern, caused by a cyclonic circulation that moved from south Bengal and Bangladesh to north Bengal.
“In the presence of a favourable wind pattern and strong moisture incursion from the Bay of Bengal, enhanced thunderstorm activity is very likely over the districts of Bengal,” said the bulletin.
The Met official said the intensity of the rain and winds will be relatively on the lower side on Sunday and Monday, before it peaks on Tuesday.