An aircraft flies amid overcast conditions over Patna on Friday evening. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Hurdles clear, the monsoon on Friday regained momentum and started moving towards the state, parts of which experienced rainfall.

Intermittent drizzles in the city came as a relief to residents, gasping in sultry conditions. Purnea, Katihar and Gaya also recorded moderate rainfall on Friday.

Meteorologists refrained from terming the showers as monsoon rainfall, though. “The showers on Friday at few isolated pockets in the state were pre-monsoon showers. In order to attribute showers at a place to monsoon, the rainfall at that particular meteorological sub-division and its adjoining sub-divisions on either side should be at least 1.5 times more than the normal. The actual precipitation in Patna, sub-Himalayan Bengal to its north-east and Jharkhand sub-division in the south was less than 1.5 times the normal rain on Friday. The cloud coverage was also not 100 per cent at most places in the state,” said Ashish Sen, director, India Meteorological Department (IMD), Patna.

The monsoon, however, has started moving towards the state. Met scientists in the city claimed on Friday evening that the low pressure condition near Gopalpur in coastal Odisha that had halted the monsoon advance over the past two days had weakened. Subsequently, the northern tip of the monsoon trough line has started shifting slowly towards its normal position over Bengal. The monsoon rainfall is expected in the state on Saturday evening or latest by Sunday morning.

The monsoon bulletin of IMD, Delhi, issued on Friday evening stated that conditions were favourable for the advancement of the southwest monsoon into some more parts of Bihar and east Uttar Pradesh during the next 48 hours. Last year, the monsoon entered through Purnea on June 19 and covered the entire state the same day.

On Friday, the city skies were partially covered with clouds. The overcast condition and the intermittent drizzles brought down the maximum day temperature to 34.9°C, one notch lower than that recorded on Thursday.

Residents were upbeat as they got respite from the sultry conditions. “If the skies are cloudy, it should rain. Otherwise, the weather becomes unbearably humid and highly uncomfortable. If it rains in the weekend, I will definitely walk out of my home and enjoy the showers,” said Saurabh Kumar, a resident of Kankerbagh.