Rainy day out: A child returns home from school on a rainy Friday afternoon. Picture by Srinivas

Jan. 25: Rain and an overcast sky throughout the day today forced those living the state capital to bring out their woollens and make the best of the last days of winter, but travellers to and from Ranchi were hit hard as flight schedules went haywire.

In Jamshedpur, incessant rains compounded the problem for travellers. Several cultural programmes had to be rescheduled, while attendance in schools, colleges and offices was thin.

The Ranchi-Patna JetLite flight was cancelled and the airline had to send 10 passengers to Patna by road.

The flight did land at Ranchi’s Birsa Munda airport, but could not proceed to Patna due to inclement weather there. It returned to Delhi instead.

“As Patna was foggy this morning, we had to cancel our flight in this sector,” said a JetLite official at Ranchi.

But the Delhi-Ranchi-Patna Indian flight made it, though it was two hours late in reaching Ranchi. It landed at BMA around 12.40 in the afternoon, but since the fog in Patna had cleared by then, it could fly to Patna.

Deccan and MDLR airlines operated their flights, but with great “care”, said an official. “We had to be in touch with our airline officials elsewhere all through the day, taking details of the weather every minute,” said Krishna Kumar of Deccan here.

“The cloud cover and fog is expected to clear after Saturday, but the minimum temperature will come down,” said A. Wadood, weather scientist at the Birsa Agriculture University (BAU), Kanke.

The city recorded about 2mm rainfall — it added to the chill — on Friday. While the minimum temperature was 11.8 degrees Celsius, the maximum was 14.6 degrees Celsius.

Flight operations between Jamshedpur and Calcutta were hit too. Both the morning and the evening flights of Deccan had to be cancelled.

But weather conditions are said to improve from tomorrow afternoon.

“The cyclonic circulation prevailing over the state is gradually weakening according to this evening’s weather chart analysis,” said T.N. Jha, director of Patna meteorological office, which monitors weather conditions in Jharkhand.

According to the local met office, Jamshedpur recorded rainfall of 21.4mm (till 5.30pm). The maximum temperature was 16.5 degrees Celsius —nine degrees less than normal — 2.4 degrees Celsius less than yesterday. The minimum temperature was 14 degrees Celsius.

The Alipore Met office predicted that the minimum temperature in most parts of the state was expected to drop by 2-3 degrees Celsius in the next 48 hours.

“The cloud cover would clear by tomorrow due to frequent changes in the wind pattern leading to a significant drop in minimum temperatures,” said G.C. Debnath, director of Alipore Met office.