The mayor is too busy bringing the Book Fair back to the Maidan to care about the city’s gully pits.

A smart shower on Wednesday afternoon, caused by a western disturbance, left several pockets across the city waterlogged. The Met office recorded 26.8 mm of rainfall till 5.30pm.

“Since showers are unlikely in winter, the gully pits have not been cleaned properly. This resulted in the accumulation of water,” said civic chief engineer (drainage and sewerage) Tushar Ghosh.

What he left unsaid was that a mayor more bothered about basic civic issues than a book fair could have lessened the extent of waterlogging.

The kerb channels on APC Road (up to the Kaiser Street crossing), Broad Street, Surya Sen Street, Picnic Garden Road, Madan Mohan Burman Street, Vivekananda Road, Loudon Street, Chittaranjan Avenue and McLeod Street went under ankle-deep water in the afternoon.

An official said the city’s sewer arteries can handle up to six mm of rainfall an hour. “On Wednesday, it rained a lot more. Still, if the gully pits were not clogged, the water would have drained out faster.”

The civic body operated 38 pumps to clear the water.

The city, however, can take hope from the Met office’s prediction that the sky will clear up on Thursday.

“The moisture-laden western disturbance shifted from east Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand to central Bengal, resulting in cloud formation over Calcutta and its adjoining districts since Tuesday evening,” said G.C. Debnath, the director of the weather section at Regional Meteorological Centre, Alipore.

“Since the disturbance is moving towards east-northeast, the weather will improve from tomorrow,” Debnath added.

Once the sky clears, the minimum temperature will drop again, leading to another cold spell. The minimum temperature on Wednesday was 15.2 degrees Celsius, up from 12 degrees on Tuesday.

“The cloud cover was blocking the North Wind, resulting in the rise in the minimum temperature. The wind changed its course from Tuesday night. It started blowing from the south-west, feeding the western disturbance with moisture from the Bay of Bengal. The cold North Wind will have a free run again after the cloud cover lifts,” said an official of the weather department.

Another western disturbance hovering over Jharkhand and the adjoining Gangetic Bengal had brought showers to the city and its adjoining districts on Friday and Saturday.

The city shivered last weekend as the rain brought down the maximum temperature by 10 degrees Celsius, to 17 degrees. The minimum temperature was 15 degrees.

On January 20 and 21, the weather had turned warm after incursion of moisture.