Kolkata: The late-night intense nor’wester, accompanied by squally wind on Monday night, pulled Tuesday’s minimum temperature down by five notches below the normal mark. The day temperature too dipped on Tuesday by 3.6 notches below normal. The Met officials said that while the chances of rain in the city are less in the next two days, there is a bright possibility of renewed thundershower activities in the city and other parts of Bengal by Friday.The city logged a total of 17.6 mm of rain during the thunderstorm activities on Monday night, making it the highest one-day rainfall for March in seven years. The sharp showers and the first squall of the season, rampaging through Kolkata and picking up a highest wind speed of 72 kmph, pulled the minimum temperature down to 18.4°, a whopping five notches below the normal mark. The minimum was above the normal mark for 12 days at a stretch till it slipped to 18.4° on Tuesday from 30.6° the previous day. This is also the lowest minimum in the city in more than a month.“May is the month where we get the maximum number of nor’wester spells with high rain count. But in some years we get it in March also, like the one we encountered on Monday night,” said meteorologist HR Biswas, head at Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) Kolkata.Last year in March, the city got a monthly total of 5.1 mm rain, with the highest 24-hour rain count being only 2.5 mm. In 2024, the highest single-day rain count for March was 12.4 mm, while in 2023 it was 8.9 mm of rain. In March 2022 and 2021, the city was left high and dry with no rain in the city for the entire month. In 2020, the 24-hour highest rain at 17.6 mm was the same as that of this March. With the possibility of rain on the wane in the next few days, the mercury is set to rise again slightly. “The chance of rain, specially in Kolkata, is now less due to change in wind pattern and presence of less moisture quantity. But there will be enhanced thunderstorm activities over many districts from Friday onwards. For Kolkata, the highest chance is on Saturday noon onwards,” added the RMC Kolkata head.Weather officials said that the city is currently getting the dry westerly wind mostly. But this wind pattern is likely to start changing by Friday and start injecting moisture. Along with wind pattern change, there is a possibility of the impact of a passing western disturbance and trough line casting its spell to enhance the thundershower activities.
