Kolkata: A thunderstorm that struck Kolkata and its neighbouring districts on Friday midnight pulled the minimum temperature down by five degrees to 20.2°C on Saturday. Conditions remain favourable for ‘enhanced thunderstorm activity’ across south and north Bengal, said the Met office. Kolkata clocked a maximum temperature of 31.2°C on Saturday, 3.5°C below normal. The midnight storm was accompanied by a wind speed of 60-70 km/hr and uprooted around 25 trees. A squall hit North 24 Parganas on Saturday morning with a maximum wind speed of 61 km/hour. Another thunderstorm struck parts of North 24 Parganas in the evening.Around 25 full-grown trees were uprooted in areas such as Tollygunge, Jadavpur, Southern Avenue, Ballygunge, Dhakuria, Jodhpur Park, Golf Green, Anwar Shah Road, Mudiali, New Alipore, Patuli, Anandapur, Mukundapur in south and south-east Kolkata spanning three boroughs. A bulletin issued by the Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) on Saturday said: “Friday’s upper air circulation over south Bengal and adjoining Bangladesh at 0.9 km above mean sea level now lies over north Bengal and neighbourhood at 0.9 km above mean sea level. The trough in westerlies in lower to upper atmospheric levels between 3.1 and 9.4 km above sea level runs roughly along 23°N. A trough/wind discontinuity runs from Gangetic Bengal to Tamil Nadu across Odisha. In presence of favourable wind pattern and strong moisture incursion from Bay of Bengal, enhanced thunderstorm activity likely over the districts of Bengal on March 28 and 31.” The mercury will rise marginally on Sunday, especially the minimum temperature, said the Met office. “Since conditions remain favourable for thunderstorms, districts across south and north Bengal will continue to be lashed by them. Kolkata will remain relatively dry over the next two days, barring sporadic localised thunderstorms. On March 31, however, chances of thundershowers will rise across the districts of south and north Bengal. Along with Gangetic Bengal, north Bengal districts, too, are being lashed by thunderstorms. These will continue till March 31,” said deputy director general of meteorology HR Biswas.The city has already received around six thunderstorms this month, against a normal of four. “We expect at least one more in the next 24 hours. While it could remain relatively dry, barring localized thunderstorms till March 30, conditions will again turn favourable for sporadic thundershowers on March 31,” added Bandyopadhyay.On Thursday, North 24 Parganas and northern fringes of Kolkata received a severe thunderstorm with an accompanying wind speed of 40-50 km/hour. It forced chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s aircraft to keep hovering in the sky since the weather was not conducive for landing at Dum Dum airport. Salt Lake received a hailstorm.
