Kolkata: The heat is on in the city after a very short spring. While the maximum temperature dipped slightly on Wednesday after it stepped on the 33°C mark on Tuesday, Met officials said it is likely to go up to 33°C by Thursday.Climatologically, spring in Kolkata is a short period of transition from winter to summer, marked by pleasant weather, mostly from mid-Feb to mid-March. While the other typical traits of spring, like the blooming of palash and shimul, continue to suggest the season is on, the rising heat indicates otherwise. Meteorologists attribute the missing spring to climate change.“Nowadays, spring in Kolkata is very short, sometimes not even noticeable, owing to the impact of climate change. While spring is the period that marks a smooth transition from winter to summer, its absence makes this transition abrupt. This year, too, there was a brief and light spring period,” said meteorologist H R Biswas, head at IMD’s Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC), Kolkata.After a sustained winter this year, the maximum temperature touched 30°C on Feb 18 — the first time in about three months. It also slipped below 30°C only once in the past fortnight. On Tuesday, it shot up to 33.1°C, only to recede slightly to 32.6°C, 0.3 notches above normal, on Wednesday. In the past fortnight, the day temperature stayed above normal on 11 days.Met officials also said that while the maximum is only marginally above normal, the heat is felt because of the sustained cold days the city experienced this winter. The maximum dipped to a record-breaking low of 18°C on Jan 6, the lowest in over a decade for the month.The night temperature, however, shot above normal only on four days in the past fortnight, the highest being 25°C on March 2, which was four notches above normal. On Wednesday, at 20.5°C, it was 0.5 notches below the normal mark.“The city is currently mostly getting the dry westerly or north-westerly wind. As a result, we are not expecting any big mercury jump in the next one week, during which, the maximum is likely to swing between 32°C and 34°C while the minimum will be between 21°C and 23°C,” the RMC Kolkata chief added.While Kolkata is not under threat of any major weather system at present, the Met office is keeping close tabs on a system that could change the wind pattern by next week and could trigger thunderstorm activity in parts of south Bengal.
