Namaste, I am Ayan Chatterjee. In Bengali, the term “rainfall plaster” is used to mean a bit like putting a plaster on a wounded place. Weathermen had forecasted rain but from Wednesday there would be a marginally cloudy sky and chances of rain altering from Thursday to Saturday. The weather forecasters had made this forecast, but today after noon, the weather turned around, and the Alipore Weather Office has been making nowcasts one after another regarding which districts will have rain when, which we’ve been displaying throughout the day on TV9 Bangla. This rain has some good sides.
Weather Update News: The heat has cleared and rain has arrived, did you get it?
Of course, there has been some respite in this heat, but there’s a downside too. How it has been raining, with hail as well, has especially hit potato cultivation. Not all the potatoes have made a transition from the fields to cold storage or markets yet, so there are still plenty of potatoes in the fields. The diameter of hail that has hit could lead to very severe damage to potato crops and other vegetable crops, according to the reports we’re getting from the fields, and that is very concerning. Overall, today was very hot, with the temperature in Purulia being over 40 degrees, and some places were registering:
Panagarh 39.4, Asansol 39.4, Shiuri 39.2, i.e., temperatures reaching 40 degrees. All these are 5-6 degrees more than normal. Bankura 38.6, Sriniketan 38.3, Dum Dum 37.5, Malda in North Bengal also recorded temperatures over 36 degrees. Kolkata and the coastal regions were also under oppressive heat. Post-noon, a thunder cloud was visible in the sky of Purulia, and meteorologists declared storms and rain would be there in Purulia. Rain could have been there in certain areas of Purulia, and then the cloud shifted towards Bankura where there were storms, rain, and hail. Following Bankura, in the radar image, we could see the cloud shifting to Hooghly, portions of West Medinipur, and subsequently gradually some cloud shifted to East Bardhaman district and some to Nadia. Later, some clouds were observed entering Howrah from Hooghly through West Medinipur, and also there was rain in West Medinipur’s Ghatal and Chandrakona regions. There was rain in Medinipur city after dusk, and scattered rainfall in North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, and Kolkata finally. There were good rain at some places for a short period, some strong winds, and some heavy hail.
The highlight of the storm today was hail, with rasgulla-sized hailstones at many places. Some places white in seconds, as if in snowfall. This didn’t occur evenly all over – there are quite a number of places in South Bengal where there was no rain at all, some places got very light rain, such as in Alipore where a mere 0.2 millimeters of rain fell, which wasn’t noticeable at all. Hail wasn’t seen in all places, but on the whole, hail did fall in fairly many places.
Now for the weather forecast for the next few days: As per the latest forecast by the Alipore Weather Office, tomorrow six western districts—Bankura, Jhargram, West Bardhaman, West Medinipur, Purulia, and Birbhum—will face a heat wave, while the rest of the districts, including Kolkata, will be left with sticky heat with increased sweating tomorrow as water vapor has begun to fill the atmosphere. This oppressive heat will continue tomorrow, and after Tuesday, temperatures may go down by two to three degrees.
Weather Update News: The heat has cleared and rain has arrived, did you get it?
Why did it rain today? Dry air is coming from the northwest direction, and water vapour has begun to enter from the Bay of Bengal. The conflict between these two contradictory air masses gave birth to thunderclouds. Another reason is that the soil in our Chota Nagpur plateau area, our western area, was so hot today that it caused instability in the air above it, leading to conducive conditions for thundercloud development. After Wednesday, i.e., Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, such favorable conditions will be created even more, so over the weekend—Thursday, Friday, and Saturday—there’s even greater chance of scattered rain like today in the South Bengal districts, with some stormy winds in certain areas. So we can tell that whereas we’ve already experienced heat in spring, we are now starting to experience a rainy spell in spring, which has already begun and is going to continue in the days to come. Hopefully, after Monday, i.e., from Tuesday, this heat will diminish to a great extent, at least partially, at least for now.
