Relief from the swelter is here to stay but respite from power cuts continued to elude the city and its neighbourhood on Friday.

Scattered showers from the revived monsoon brought relief to various parts of the parched city while the discomfort level dropped closer to normal, even as the weatherman forecast a rainy weekend.

“Several areas in and around the city received rain on Friday because of the activation of monsoon flow. There will be light to medium rain over the weekend. The showers will slowly get heavier, though not before next week,” said Gokul Chandra Debnath, the director of the Regional Meteorological Centre in Alipore.

With the city receiving 5.1mm rain on Friday, the mercury dropped to a minimum of 26.7 degree Celsius, which is normal. The day’s maximum temperature was a point above normal at 33.6 degree Celsius. The discomfort index touched 58 degree Celsius, three points above normal, and the humidity ranged between 65 and 95 per cent.

According to the weatherman, the weekend will be comfortable with spells of rain and thunderstorms on the radar. “The next 48 hours should bring down the discomfort further as there will be scattered rain and thunderstorms in south Bengal, including Calcutta and its neighbourhood,” said Debnath.

The weather seemed to get better, but the city’s power woes continued through Friday. CESC resorted to rotational power cuts of 60 to 90 minutes during the day, sending the discomfort index of a different kind soaring.

Two roadblocks were put up late on Thursday to protest prolonged power cuts. The first blockade was at the Trenching Ground Road-Paharpur Road crossing in Garden Reach and the other on Govinda Khatik Road in Tiljala. Several other parts of the city suffered power cuts through Thursday and Friday.

A power department official held out hope by saying that a “new source of supply” could finally end the shortfall.

“The government has allowed 60-70MW to be imported from the Purulia pumped storage project. This will benefit CESC-served areas as the shortfall in imports was partly responsible for the city’s power woes in recent weeks,” he added.

The installed capacity of the Purulia plant is 900MW, with its four units generating 225MW each. Power from the plant was so far not available to the CESC-served areas.