Kolkata set to enter hot and humid phase from today, no rain for next few days: Met

Kolkata: While thunderstorms between Wednesday night and Thursday morning pulled the mercury way below the normal mark, brace for hotter days ahead from Friday. The city is set to enter a hot and humid phase when the mercury will start shooting up once again. The Met office sees no rain in the city in the next few days.Alipore recorded 24.8 mm of rain between the evenings of Wednesday and Thursday, of which 9.4 mm occurred towards Thursday morning. Even as the city has been countering thunderstorm activities for five days at a stretch, this was the highest 24-hour rain count this season. While most rain activities happened between late evenings and late nights, on Thursday the city got a fair amount of rain early in the morning."The rain was significant enough to pull the mercury further down. Thundershowers were more intense in Dum Dum and Salt Lake, with even higher rain amount," said Met scientist HR Biswas, head of Regional Meteorological Centre, Kolkata.An upper air cyclonic circulation over Bangladesh and neighbourhood, an east-west trough from the cyclonic circulation, and another upper air cyclonic circulation over Odisha were responsible for triggering the current thunderstorms. On Wednesday, it was fuelled further by the impact of a western disturbance, triggering intensified rain.While Kolkata recorded gusty wind during Thursday's thunderstorm, Met officials said the wind speed and the criteria were not enough to be qualified as a squall. But a squall passed over Dum Dum with wind gusting up to 57 kmph. Gusty winds were recorded at one or two places over West Burdwan, South 24 Parganas, Nadia, Purulia and Howrah districts during the storm.Met officials said these weather systems are gradually weakening, reducing the rain possibilities from Friday onwards.The maximum, which was below normal in the past four days, plummeted further on Thursday, below 30°C. At 26.5°C, it was 8.7 notches below normal. The sharp fall in the maximum narrowed the gap between the day and night temperature to only about 5°. The minimum stood at 21.3°, 3.9 notches below normal."From Friday onwards we can expect mainly sunny sky and the inflow of the dry wind system or westerly or north-westerly wind. The maximum is likely to reach 32° and then gradually climb up to around 35° in subsequent days," said Biswas. While 32° is way below the normal mark, Met officials said the sharp surge from 26.5° will make people sweat.