KOLKATA: Monsoon arrived in Kolkata on a cloudy Saturday morning even as it rained intermittently, a day after its scheduled date of arrival.
The city received short spells of drizzle through the day and will continue to receive light rain over the next 48 hours.
Last year, too, monsoon had reached Kolkata on June 12.
“While all the necessary conditions for the advent of monsoon had been fulfilled on Friday, there was too little rain to declare the onset of monsoon.
On Saturday morning, Kolkata received around 20 mm rain which satisfied the only unfulfilled requirement for the advent of monsoon,” said Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) director GK Das.
Monsoon waves now cover 95% of the state, including the whole of south Bengal.
The remaining areas will be covered by Sunday.
The other requirements for the onset — clouds, moisture and wind — got stronger on Saturday.
But heavy rain may elude Kolkata due to a strong wind shear that has been blowing away clouds floating in from the Bay of Bengal, said the Met office.
“A strong northwesterly wind has been driving away the clouds towards Bangladesh, which are then entering Bengal through the neighbouring country.
By the time the clouds and the rain reach south Bengal, they are either turning weak or are again being pushed towards the western districts of the state and Jharkhand.
This is why Purulia and Bankura have received heavier showers over the last two days while the rest of south Bengal, including Kolkata, have got only drizzles,” explained Das.
Kolkata will continue to receive short spells of shower.
But the rain may add up to 70 mm over the next 72 hours, said RMC.
While last year, monsoon had arrived in Kolkata a day late — on June 12, it had been delayed by 10 days in 2019.
Even though it’s on time this year, this doesn’t reflect on the possible volume of rain for the entire season.
“We are just heading for the beginning of monsoon and there can’t be any prediction for the month or even the first week of monsoon.
Usually, June is the driest of the monsoon months in Kolkata while July is the wettest.
The pattern, however, is often broken,” said Das.