Calcutta received short bursts of rain interspersed with sunshine on Tuesday, a trend the Met office said might continue for the next couple of days.

The city received 25.4mm of rain in spells from morning till early afternoon on Tuesday. The heaviest in most parts of the city was recorded from 8.30am to 9am.

“It started raining heavily around 1pm just when I was about to leave home. By the time I hailed a taxi on Rashbehari Avenue I was completely drenched. But when I reached the Exide crossing there was bright sunshine,” said Mitali Roy, a 23-year-old management student.

The rain has been intermittent and localised because of a lack of any intense weather system in the vicinity of the city. Typical monsoon showers are widespread and more prolonged.

“At the moment, there is a low-pressure area near the Odisha coast. The system is responsible for the brief spells of rain in Calcutta and its neighbourhood,” said Gokul Chandra Debnath, the director of the India Meteorological Department, Calcutta.

As the low-pressure belt is moving slowly towards the Odisha coast, Calcutta will continue to be in its “range” for the next couple of days and receive intermittent showers.

“The belt is over north-west Bay of Bengal. It has boosted the flow of moisture from the sea towards the land, leading to cloud formation. Because the system is closer to Odisha, the coastal regions of that state are getting more rain than the coastal parts of Bengal,” said Debnath.

Experts said an intense weather system was needed to make up for July’s shower deficit in south Bengal.

“South Bengal needs a depression or deep depression over the Bay for it to make up for the deficit,” said a weather scientist.

Rainfall, however, is increasing in the city, said a senior official of the India Meteorological Department.

“We had a dry spell of nine days at the beginning of July, but it has been raining almost daily since. But the amount of rainfall has been less than usual in the absence of a strong cyclonic system. However, that can change any time,” he said.

The relative humidity in the city has been on the higher side. The minimum relative humidity touched an extremely high 84 per cent on Tuesday.

“The relative humidity is always high during this time of the year. It comes down if we have a spell of heavy shower, exactly what Calcutta is missing,” said a weather scientist.