Monsoon is at the striking distance. Before you watch Priyanka Chopra and Shahid Kapoor’s rain dance in a Teri Meri Kahaani hit number in the city theatres, rains will be in the town.

Monsoon is expected to arrive in Patna by Thursday. Teri Meri Kahaani, in which Priyanka and Shahid dance in rain in the song “Allah Jaane”, will hit the cinemas on Friday.

After the pre-dawn shower in the city on Monday, weathermen said monsoon would hit the northern parts of Bihar within 24 hours and the entire state in three days.

Ashish Sen, the director (radar) of India Meteorological Department (IMD), Patna, told The Telegraph: “Light rainfall occurred on Monday around 4am. It was a pre-monsoon activity. The precipitation was 6.2mm. At present, the central wing of the southwest monsoon has covered half of Odisha and three-fourth of Bengal. A cyclonic circulation prevailing over Bihar and Uttar Pradesh is likely to draw the monsoon towards the state in the next 24 hours. With the existing pace of advancement of monsoon, it is likely to cover the entire state in another 48 to 72 hours.”

The prevailing easterly winds for the past two days, the rainfall and the cloud cover on Monday gave Patnaites the much-awaited respite from the prolonged summer spell.

“The weather became cooler from Saturday and the rainfall on Monday morning was the icing on the cake. The weather was soothing this morning. It was a big relief,” said Shailendra Kumar, a resident of Sri Krishna Nagar.

The Met department claimed that the shower on Monday was an indicator of monsoon getting closer to the state. IMD, Delhi, on Monday said the conditions were favourable for the advancement of the southwest monsoon to some more parts of Arabian Sea, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, remaining parts of Maharashtra, Odisha, Bengal and Sikkim, and some parts of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar during the next two to three days.

Weather scientists in the state echoed the claim of IMD, Delhi, on the arrival on monsoon in the state within three days. Abdul Sattar, the assistant professor of meteorology at Rajendra Agriculture University, Muzaffarpur, told The Telegraph: “After a prolonged dry spell, several parts of the state, especially north Bihar, received pre-monsoon rains to the tune of 2mm to 15mm on Sunday night. According to our observations, the southwest monsoon will enter through the northern parts of the state in 48 hours.”