Brief squall bring little respite to Bengal

Kolkata, May 4 (UNI) Brisk rainfall today brought slight dip in the city's night temperatures from 33.3 degrees to 26.5 degrees.

The Alipore Met officials today recorded the maximum temperature at 38.1 degrees Celsius, two degrees above normal, whereas the minimum was at 25.4 degrees Celsius, one degree below normal.

So far there has been as little as 0.3 mm rainfall during the two minute squall between 1916-1918 hours this evening. The squall was accompanied by strong winds with maximum speed of 93 kmph in a westerly direction.

Midnapore and Bardhaman received rainfall of about 1 mm each.

Met officials forecast a partly cloudy sky with possibility of development of thunder clouds towards the evening in the next 24 hours. The maximum temperature is likely to be around 36 degrees Celsius.

Thunder squalls with wind speed reaching between 50-60 kmph is likely to occur at isolated places over West Bengal during the next 24 hours.

Rain or thundershower is likely to occur at a few places over the districts of Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, North and South 24 Parganas, East and West Midnapore, Bankura, Bardhaman, Birbhum, Purulia, Murshidabad, Nadia, Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Malda and North and South Dinajpur.

Very light to light rain occurred at many places with moderate rain at isolated places in Gangetic West Bengal. Very light to light rain occurred at a few places in Sub-Himalayan West Bengal.

UNI LL PC GT BST2135