Bihar’s economy is booming, but it is still a laggard on one front — the race to record maximum temperature in summer.

While cities like Calcutta and Bhubaneswar recorded an all-time high temperature of the decade this summer, Patna missed out on the “feat” nobody is complaining about . The highest temperature recorded so far in the city this season is 44.4°C (on May 22).

Bharat Kumar, a teacher, said: “Thankfully, the highest temperature did not go beyond 45°C. Else, we too would have been in the race of record highest temperature. Thank God for the small mercies.”

The state capital recorded a maximum of 45.6°C on May 29, 2005. Compared to that, the maximum this year was milder. But that does not mean the summer was not harsh.

The prolonged dry spell, particularly the absence of pre-monsoon shower, turned the summer bad to worse. The pre-monsoon rainfall in the state this year was the scantiest in the past six years.

According to the Met department, the state recorded 46.5mm rainfall between March and May against the normal 77.5mm during the same period. It is a drop of 40 per cent from the normal pre-monsoon rainfall in the state.

The situation has been worse in the state capital. There has been no rainfall in the state capital for the past 57 days.

Assessing this year’s summer (March to May), Ashish Sen, the director (radar) of India Met Department, Patna, said: “The month of March was comparatively cooler this year because of the prolonged winter. The weather condition in April was more or less similar to the expected conditions during that time of the year. North-westerly and westerly winds prevailed in the atmosphere in the state capital in April. May, on the other hand, was extremely dry and hot because of the prevalence of dry westerly winds over the state capital.”

Senior citizens of the state capital claimed that there was not much difference in the heat factor this year but the climate in general was getting hotter.

“Hot and cold weathers are natural phenomena and every year people claim that the summer was very harsh. But I would like to claim that the climate of the state capital has heated up in general over the past decade because of excessive and unplanned urbanisation. I have observed that a large number of trees have been cut in the city for roads. None of the trees that dotted Gardiner Road around 10 years ago are visible today. Such non- green areas are termed as heat islands as there are only roads and houses, which reflect heat,” said septuagenarian R.C. Sinha, a retired professor and head of zoology of Patna University.

Frequent power cuts because of local snags worsened the situation this summer in the city. People spent sleepless nights, sweating.

Subhash Mishra, a resident of Kadamkuan, said: “Erratic power supply made life difficult this summer. We could not sleep several nights because air-conditioners did not function, as the voltage was low.”

Still, this summer was not the cruellest. At least not on the highest temperature front!