Discomfort spike as deep depression moves to B’desh
Times of India | 31 May 2025
123 Kolkata: While spells of rain and a gloomy sky through Thursday kept the city cool, the discomfort level rose on Friday with the city remaining mostly dry. The deep depression that brought rain to the city and other districts is now over north Bangladesh and adjoining Meghalaya. Since the system has moved away from the city, it will not have any more impact on Kolkata and south Bengal.The mercury on Friday remained below the normal mark, but the sun and high humidity made the real feel as high as 11 notches above the actual temperature during the day. The Met office has predicted hotter days ahead due to the diminishing chance of rain.Around the time when the city recorded a maximum temperature of 32 degrees Celsius on Friday, 3.1 notches below the normal mark, the feel-like temperature went up as high as 43 degrees. In addition to the absence of rain, the maximum and minimum relative humidity were also at a high of 97% and 76%, respectively."Even as the city might get some scattered showers till Saturday, chances of such showers are very less from Sunday onwards, and hence the mercury will now gradually scale up by three to five degrees during the next four to five days," said Meteorologist H R Biswas, head of weather forecast section at the RMC, Kolkata.The Met office had pinned hope on the system to accelerate monsoon arrival in Kolkata and the rest of south Bengal. Met officials said that if the system sustained and hovered close to the city for a longer period, it could have propelled the monsoon's arrival in two to three days. But strong wind shear drifted the cloud columns away as they moved to Bangladesh and north-eastern states. "As of now, there is no possible advancement of the monsoon in south Bengal, at least in the next five to six days," said Biswas.The May rain count in Kolkata till Friday, which totals 178.1 mm, has exceeded mean monthly count of 133.1 mm. In May 2024, the city got 500.7 mm rainfall, with 152.7 mm showers on a single day during Cyclone Remal. This May, the highest single-day rain count was 37.2 mm.