Ready to burst: Dark clouds over Patna on Wednesday. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Patna, June 8: After a good night’s sleep, the residents of the city woke up to overcast skies this morning. It was a pleasant change but the humidity was a cause of discomfort.

The sudden storm and rain last afternoon had checked the northward movement of the mercury. The temperature dipped considerably and most residents had a pleasant sleep last night.

“I slept well last night, thanks to the weather. The mood in the morning was also sleepy. However, going to work on time is my habit. So I was all ready to go by 9.30am,” Vinod Singh, a resident of Gardanibagh, said.

Though the clouds and the sun played a game of hide-and-seek, Singh and others like him were uncomfortable because of the humidity. But when Singh peeked out of the window around 12.40pm, he found, much to his delight, that the dark clouds had conquered the firmament. Rain followed soon.

“Gusty winds were observed over Patna at 12.50pm. North-westerly winds, with a maximum velocity of 48kmph, swept across the city. The winds were accompanied by rainfall. Around 3.2mm rainfall was recorded. It brought down the temperature by 4°C,” Animesh Chanda, the director of Patna Met department, said.

Weathermen claimed that such gusty winds accompanied by showers are favourable for the arrival of monsoon. Although the scorching heat condition is now under control, Met department officials claimed that the humidity would hover between 60 per cent and 70 per cent for the next few days.

The Patna Met department recorded 16.9mm of rainfall in Bihar from June 1 to 7, which is 35 per cent less than the normal rainfall of 26mm during this period.

“Monsoon is expected to arrive first in the eastern regions of Bihar between June 10 and June 15. Around 1,024.1mm of rainfall is expected between June and September this year. Monsoon has arrived in parts of northeast India. Rains have reached Aizawl in Mizoram and parts of northern Bay of Bengal till now. The monsoon will cover more parts of Bay of Bengal and Assam in the next two or three days. Although there is more progress of monsoon on eastern side, on the west-coast it has reached Mumbai and Karnataka,” added Chanda.

Last year, monsoon arrived in Bihar on June 18. But the total rainfall in the state was 798.78mm, around 22 per cent less than the normal rainfall expected in Bihar.