Thick clouds in the Siliguri sky on Tuesday. Picture by Kundan Yolmo

Siliguri, March 18: Siliguri and the surrounding plains had almost bid farewell to winter when a sudden fall in temperature, cloudy skies and accompanying drizzle since yesterday prolonged its departure.

The change in the climate is a boon for farmers as many crops stand to benefit from the rain, a handiwork of the Easterly winds.

While yesterday’s highest temperature was 29.5 degree Celsius, it was 23.5 degrees today, a drop of six degrees.

“The minimum temperature in the past 24 hours was 17.2 degree Celsius, which is less than two degrees in the previous day’s minimum temperature,” said Subir Sarkar, the in-charge of North Bengal University’s weather station.

“Usually at this time of the year, such drops in temperature are brought about by thunderstorms caused by depressions,” said Sarkar. “But this is the doing of the Easterly wave current from the Arabian Sea. Since last week, the wind has been blowing in the hills, causing the weather there to be cloudy and cold. There were scattered rainfalls as well. This wind started descending on the plains over the past two days.”

It started getting colder from yesterday morning. By evening, huge clouds have gathered overhead and strong winds started blowing. Rain fell throughout the night and in the morning. The total rainfall recorded in the past 24 hours was 11.5mm.

The chill was in the air today too with people bringing out the woollens they had just tucked away. Sarkar said there would be intermittent rain in the next 24 hours.

Ashish Tripathi, additional director of agriculture, north Bengal, said following the rain, the soil got enough moisture, which will help tobacco growers in Cooch Behar. He also said the bonanza of the rain is that bodo crops will not need more irrigation.

According to Tripathi, since rain was not so heavy, there was no large-scale shedding of mango flowers.