Aug gets 40 mm more rain than usual in first 6 days; Met spies heavier spells today
Times of India | 7 August 2025
Kolkata: While July ended on a high rain note, Aug is off to a bumper beginning. In the first six days of the month, the city has logged 113.9 mm of rainfall against the normal of 73.9 mm for the period. The Met office has forecast further rain in the coming days, which will increase the month's rain total.
Meteorologically, Aug is considered the second wettest monsoon month, with an estimated normal rain count of 364 mm in Kolkata. This time, in the first six days alone, the city has received a little above one-third of this monthly cumulative rain amount.
"By the sixth day of the month, Kolkata should have ideally got 73.9 mm of rainfall. However, it has recorded 113.9 mm of rainfall already," said meteorologist H R Biswas, head of the weather forecast section at the Regional Meteorological Centre, Kolkata.
While a delayed onset and a sluggish monsoon flow led to June ending with a rain deficit of 15%, with Kolkata receiving only 241.5 mm of rainfall, July ended on a record-breaking note with a cumulative rain of 669 mm, making it the rainiest July in a decade. It also made up for the June rain deficit. "Currently, the city's seasonal rain surplus stands at 38%, while for south Bengal, it is 46% excess," Biswas said.
Climatologically, Aug should have a mean of 16.9 rainy days. So far, all six days have recorded rain, the highest being 44.5 mm between Monday and Tuesday evening, with the spells happening mostly at night and early morning.
Though the monsoon trough has now shifted towards the Himalayan foothills, causing more intense rain in parts of north Bengal, the trough that runs from northwest Bihar to southeast Bangladesh across northern parts of Gangetic Bengal, along with an upper air cyclonic circulation, is bringing showers to Kolkata and other parts of south Bengal.
"Widespread light to moderate rainfall with isolated heavy rainfall activity is very likely over some districts of Bengal," a special IMD bulletin said. Met officials in Kolkata said the intensity and spread of rain are likely to be greater on Thursday. The rain spells forced the maximum temperature to dip to 29.2°C, 2.8 notches below normal. At 23.5°C, the minimum was three notches below normal.