First nor’wester of season lashes South Bengal districts, brings down temp by 50C

Kolkata: The first nor’wester of the season hit South Bengal districts late on Thursday night, bringing down temperature by nearly 5 degree Celsius. Several parts of South Bengal witnessed gush of winds on Thursday night along with rainfall.

The sky remained cloudy in almost all the South Bengal districts on Friday morning. Kolkata registered its lowest temperature below 20 degree Celsius on Friday, a sudden drop from Thursday’s temperature of 25.6. The Regional Meteorological centre in Alipore predicted that a nor’wester like situation may happen in late evening hours in several South Bengal districts till Monday. Rain, thunder, lightning and hailstorm are expected to hit the state over the next two days, IMD Kolkata said.

The MeT office said several South Bengal districts, including Birbhum, Murshidabad, East Burdwan, West Burdwan will receive hail storms accompanied with lightning in the next two days.

A wind measuring around 40-50 kmph may be sweeping through these districts. North Bengal districts will also receive thundershowers. Malda, North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur will receive wind measuring around 40-50 kmph.

Various parts of South Bengal received light rainfall on Friday afternoon. The MeT office has urged people to stay indoors during thunderstorms to avoid any untoward incident.

The weather office predicted that there is a ‘high chance’ of two isolated spells of thunderstorms in the city between March 18 and 20. The spells may last for 15-30 minutes each. People in both North and South Bengal districts may witness hail storms accompanied by winds during the weekend.

There will be a gush of winds measuring 30-40 kmph sweeping through various North Bengal districts like Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Alipurduar, Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri. The change in the weather has been triggered by the western disturbance.

There may be some damage to crops, apprehend weather experts. The MeT office advised residents to stay indoors and use the Damini app to track real-time alerts. A western disturbance as a cyclonic circulation lies over Afghanistan and neighbourhood in middle tropospheric levels with an induced cyclonic circulation over southwest Rajasthan in lower tropospheric levels.

Another cyclonic circulation lies over northeast Rajasthan and neighbourhoods in lower tropospheric levels. A trough runs from Bangladesh to north Coastal Andhra Pradesh and another from Tamil

Nadu to north Konkan in

wlower tropospheric levels. Under the influence of above favourable conditions, there will be scattered to fairly widespread light/moderate rainfall with thunderstorms in northwest India.