Kolkata’s wet spell is likely to ease gradually over the weekend as a deep depression moving across central India weakens, although cloudy skies and light to moderate rain remain forecast for Saturday, the Met office said on Friday.
The city remained cloudy and rainy through Friday, with showers arriving in multiple spells. Gusty winds accompanied the rain in some areas. The Alipore Met office recorded 26mm of rainfall in Kolkata till 8.30pm on Friday.
The weather system responsible for the unsettled conditions made landfall in Andhra Pradesh between Wednesday night and the early hours of Thursday. By Friday, it had moved towards Chhattisgarh and was losing strength as it travelled inland.
A Met official said the system was expected to weaken into a low-pressure area by Saturday morning. “The system is losing steam. It is expected to weaken into a low-pressure area by Saturday morning. The weather in south Bengal is likely to gradually improve from Saturday,” the official said.
For Kolkata and other parts of south Bengal, the forecast for Saturday is for a “generally cloudy sky” with “light to moderate rain”. The regional weather bulletin said light to moderate rain or thundershowers were likely at many places across all districts of south Bengal.
The bulletin placed the depression over south Chhattisgarh and adjoining south interior Odisha at 8.30am on Friday. It said the system was about 80km east-southeast of Raipur and had moved north-northwestwards at a speed of 15kmph during the previous six hours.
The system was expected to maintain the intensity of a depression for the next 12 hours before weakening into a well-marked low-pressure area during the following 12 hours, according to the bulletin. The forecast indicated that the weakening system would bring a gradual improvement in weather conditions across south Bengal, rather than an immediate end to the rain.
The improvement is not expected to be uniform across West Bengal. The Met official said north Bengal could still receive heavy rain on Saturday, with Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Jalpaiguri specifically identified in the bulletin. South Bengal, meanwhile, was under a heavy-rain forecast until Friday, before conditions were expected to moderate.
The next significant forecast marker for Kolkata is Saturday’s expected weakening of the depression and the resulting change from persistent rain to intermittent light or moderate showers. The Met office said the weather in south Bengal was likely to improve gradually from that point.
