Kolkata: Brace to encounter hot and humid weather after the rain respite. The mercury is set to surge past the normal mark along with the humid factor. The deadly combination of the heat and humidity is expected to make the city singe, pushing up the discomfort factor. A special IMD bulletin has warned of similar conditions for other districts also, including neighbouring Howrah, South and North 24 Parganas.“Mainly dry westerly to northwesterly wind likely to prevail at lower tropospheric levels over the region and consequently hot and humid conditions are very likely to occur over some districts of South Bengal from April 2 to April 4,” said the IMD special bulletin.While thundershowers and a partly cloudy sky pushed the maximum temperature to a whopping six notches below normal on Tuesday to stand at 28.7 degrees, it surged to 33.8 degrees on Wednesday in Kolkata. While this was 0.8 degrees lower than the normal, the rise of five notches from Tuesday has already started making the heat impact.“We expect the maximum temperature in Kolkata to reach 36 degrees by Thursday and stay around this mark for the next three days. While the solar insulation will make it hot, the presence of adequate moisture in the ground level will push up the humidity level. Hence we are entering a phase of hot and humid weather, making the discomfort level high,” said meteorologist HR Biswas, head at Regional Meteorological Centre Kolkata.If the mercury touches the 36-degree mark, it will not only be the highest this summer but also the maximum temperature will be breaching the normal mark after a gap of 19 days.“While we expect the city to remain dry till Saturday, even if there is localised thundershower, the chances are only about 10%, we are likely to encounter another thundershower spell from Sunday onwards. Once that happens, it will tame the heat and humidity again,” said Biswas.The Met officials said that the wind pattern is likely to change by Friday. In addition, there is also the possibility of other weather systems like the passing of a western disturbance, formation of a trough or anticyclonic circulation that would enhance the possibility of rain.In the past decade and a half, the maximum temperature in April crossed 40 degrees Celsius in four years, including in the consecutive April of 2024 and 2023.Despite the forecast for hot and humid days ahead, the Met office however allayed the fears of heat wave-like conditions for now as the maximum temperature is unlikely to touch the 40-degree mark for now.
