The city will get light rain on Thursday as well, though the Alipore Met office ruled out an intense rain like Tuesday. The Met office also predicted a wet weekend.
A low pressure that was hovering over coastal south Bengal and triggered heavy rain on Tuesday, weakened and moved westwards towards Jharkhand on Wednesday, said an official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
The spread, intensity and volume of downpour had already reduced by Wednesday. While the Alipore Met office recorded 89.6mm of rainfall between 5.30pm on Monday and 5.30pm on Tuesday, 8.8mm of rain was recorded in the next 24 hours.
“The rainfall is likely to go down further on Thursday and Friday, but will increase again on Saturday because of the monsoon activity. The rain will not be as intense as it was on Tuesday, but it will not be dry. The sky will generally remain cloudy,” said the IMD official.
Tuesday’s rain was triggered by the twin forces of a low-pressure system and strong monsoon currents.
A low-pressure area, which lingered longer than expected over coastal south Bengal, brought heavy overnight rain in the city and adjoining districts. Strong monsoon currents helped the system.
“By Wednesday, the low pressure had moved westwards towards Jharkhand and it had also weakened. This resulted in the reduced rainfall,” the IMD official added.
But two other troughs are likely to trigger light rain, said the official.
According to a bulletin issued by the IMD on Wednesday afternoon, the monsoon trough at mean sea level was passing through Amritsar, Chandigarh, Najibabad, Shahjahanpur, Kanpur, Daltonganj, the centre of the low-pressure area over Gangetic West Bengal and adjoining Jharkhand and thence southeastwards to the northeast Bay of Bengal. One more trough was running between west Assam and Telangana.
Another bulletin issued by the IMD in the evening predicted “generally cloudy sky with a few spells of light rain/ thundershower” on Thursday. The maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to remain around 30 degrees Celsius and 25 degrees Celsius, respectively.
The maximum temperature recorded on Wednesday was 27.4 degrees Celsius, 5.1 degrees below normal. The minimum temperature recorded was 24.8 degrees Celsius, 2 degrees below normal.
“I had carried an umbrella, fearing it would again be as rainy as Tuesday. Though it rained in spells, the intensity was much less than that of Tuesday,” said a south Calcutta resident.
The run-up to the monsoon has also been rainy this year. The monsoon has been generous so far. Continuous rain and already-brimming city canals led to the waterlogging, the civic body said.