A girl runs to take shelter from rain in Patna on Monday. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Patna, Jan. 9: The state capital residents witnessed a wet opening to this week with light rainfall for half-an-hour in small hours today. The rain returned in the noon, again for 30 minutes.

The damp weather woul d persist till mid-week. Then, a cold spell would set in.

The Patna Met department attributed the rain to the influence of an anti-cyclonic circulation over the central Bay of Bengal. “Very high moisture bearing winds started blowing over Gangetic Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha because of the anti-cyclonic circulation. The moist winds caused light to medium rainfall at several places in Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand over the past three days. Bihar received late and less rainfall because of its long distance from the coastal area,” said Ashish Sen, the director of Patna Met department.

Sen said a cold phase would follow the scattered rain, which would continue in the state capital till Wednesday.

“The cloud cover would persist for the next two days with the possibility of rainfall. Thereafter, a low temperature phase with fog cover in the morning would be prevalent for the next two days,” said Sen.

The Met officials said Patna, Gaya and Purnea received intermittent rainfall from Sunday night. Muzaffarpur recorded 9.2mm rainfall.

The drizzle started in the state capital around 2am. After half-an-hour, it stopped.

It resumed around 12noon, surprising several commuters.

Mukesh Ranjan, a sales executive in a private firm, said: “When I left for office from my home in the Gola Road area around 11am, it was not at all raining. But all of a sudden it started raining when I was passing by Patna zoo on Bailey Road. Subsequently, I had to take shelter under a roadside tree. The rain stopped within five minutes and I decided to go ahead. It almost looked sunny when I was at Hartali Mor. But to my surprise, I found myself again caught in the rain when I was near Rajapur Pul around 12noon. I felt like the rain gods were playing hide-and-seek with me.”

Met officials said the minimum temperature in the state capital had increased because of overcast skies. The minimum temperature on Sunday was 14.2°C, five degrees above normal. The lowest temperature this morning was 15.9°C, seven degrees above normal.