Clouds cover the city sky on Monday. Picture by Jai Prakash

Patna, April 4: Accustomed to cope with scorching heat in April, the city residents today woke up to a pleasant morning with the sky covered with clouds accompanied by a gentle breeze and a light shower.

The rainfall brought down the maximum temperature to 28ºC, seven degrees below normal that prevails in the city at this time of the year.

The city received 0.2mm rainfall.

Patna was not the only place to experience the sudden change in weather conditions today.

Many other parts of the state witnessed cloudy condition, which was accompanied by rainfall.

Records available with the Rajendra Agriculture University, Pusa, said nine places in the state received rainfall on Monday.

Vaishali received 27mm rainfall and recorded the highest precipitation in the state.

Other places where rainfall was recorded were Katihar (13mm), Munger (11mm), Muzaffarpur (13.5mm), Samastipur (18mm), Bhagalpur (8mm), Buxar (2mm), Darbhanga (8mm) and Siwan (1mm).

“A few other places, including Madhubani too witnessed rainfall,” Rajendra Agriculture University assistant professor of meteorology Abdul Sattar told The Telegraph.

He said: “Many parts of the state, particularly the Kosi region, were likely to witness windy conditions accompanied by rainfall in the next 24 hours.”

The Met office at Patna had something similar to offer. “The cloud cover is moving from west to east and the eastern districts of the state are likely to receive rainfall in the next 24 hours,” Met director Animesh Chanda said.

Attributing the windy condition and the rainfall to cyclonic circulation, Chanda said: “The pattern had started to develop from Saturday itself.”

He said: “Apart from Bihar, weather condition of adjoining areas of Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh too got affected because of the cyclonic circulation.”

Terming it a normal climatic phenomenon at this time of the year, Chanda said: “Rainfall at this time of the year is called pre-monsoon rain.” The pre-monsoon rain spells good news for farmers, feel experts.

Agriculture department expert Anil Kumar Jha said: “This rainfall would be beneficial for the garma crop, which are sown immediately after harvesting rabi crop.”

He said: “The pre-monsoon rain would also be beneficial for surplus production of mango and litchi.”

Jha said: “The light rainfall would not hamper the standing rabi crops, which have matured.”

He added: “Harvesting may get delayed by a few days but light rainfall would not damage the plants.”

However, heavy rainfall could damage the standing crops as it might lead to accumulation of water in the fields, which would damage the mature plants, he said.