Two girls walk past Kargil Chowk shielding themselves from rain under an umbrella on Wednesday morning. Picture by Deepak Kumar

The city experienced moderate rainfall on Wednesday morning triggered by a localised thunderstorm activity but there is still no indication of the revival of monsoon in the state.

The rain started around 10am and continued for around an hour, leaving several office-goers stranded. The maximum temperature witnessed a plunge of nearly four notches because of the rain. It came down from Tuesday’s 35.2°C to 30.9°C.

Weathermen attributed the showers to localised thunderstorm activity and claimed that the monsoon was still inactive over Bihar. The nearest hope for downpour is around weekend, when light to moderate rainfall might be witnessed in the city.

Dry weather is expected in the city in the next 48 hours. “We do not expect any widespread rainfall over the next couple of days. However, there might be some rain because of isolated thunderstorm activities on August 13 and 14,” said Ashish Sen, the director at Patna meteorological centre.

Images from Kalpana-1 satellite showed convective clouds in most parts of northeast Bihar at 4pm on Wednesday. The monsoon trough line was passing through Bikaner and Jaipur in Rajasthan, Shivpuri and Satna in Madhya Pradesh, Ambikapur in Chhattisgarh, Jharsuguda and Bhubaneswar in Odisha and then extending southeast to east-central Bay of Bengal.

“The temperature in the north-eastern and central parts of the state remained slightly higher, around 35°C, over the past couple of days. The moisture in the lower level of the atmosphere triggered the thundershower because of the high temperature level. It was a temporary activity and might not last even till tomorrow (Thursday),” said Sen.

The rain gauge at the meteorological centre recorded 2mm rainfall till 5.30pm. An officer at the Patna airport observation centre of India Meteorological Department claimed that the rain in that side of the city was comparatively less, which led to such a meagre rainfall figure.

No severe waterlogging was observed in the city on Wednesday. The flight operations at Jayaprakash Narayan International airport remained were not affected.

Southwest monsoon has remained inactive in Bihar from the last week of August. Consequently, the rainfall deficiency figure has surged.

The statewide rainfall deficiency has witnessed a surge of five per cent in the past week. The state has received 707mm rain between June 1 and September 10 against the average 883mm during this period, leaving a deficiency of 20 per cent. The deficiency stood at 15 per cent as on September 2.

The rainfall deficiency in Patna has increased from zero as on September 1 to seven per cent on Wednesday. The city has received 748mm rainfall between June 1 and September 10.