Kolkata: Scattered rainfall lashed several parts of South Bengal, including the city on Friday, bringing some relief from the scorching heat.
The Regional Meteorological Centre in Alipore predicted that South Bengal districts will receive more rainfall in the next 48 hours as the South West Monsoon enters the region. There may be heavy to very heavy rainfall in some of the North Bengal districts. The South-West monsoon normally enters South Bengal on June 11 but this year it was delayed by a few days.
Alipurduar, Cooch Behar will receive very heavy rainfall in the next couple of days while Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Kalimpong and North Dinajpur will receive moderate to heavy rainfall. The highest temperature in Darjeeling may remain around 18 degree Celsius while the lowest temperature may log around 16. The highest temperature in the city stood at around 34 degree Celsius on Friday.
The MeT office had already declared that South Bengal witnessed a delayed monsoon entry this year. The weather office also predicted that people in Kolkata would witness monsoon rains after Thursday. The city sky partially remained cloudy on Friday with scattered rainfall in some pockets of South Bengal. The MeT office had earlier predicted that Bengal districts might receive heavy rainfall from June 14-16.
Various North Bengal districts have been receiving rainfall for the past many days while South Bengal districts only received a few spells of scattered showers. The south-west monsoon already entered North Bengal and also north-eastern parts of the country on June 3 and, therefore, the region received heavy rainfall. This is only the fourth occasion since 2010 when the onset of south-west monsoon over Kerala took place before time (June 1). Monsoon arrived earlier than usual in 2010 (May 31), 2017 (May 30) and 2018 (May 29).