PATNA: For the first time in the last three years, Patna has been witnessing incessant rain in the past more than 48 hours. And more rain and thundershowers are expected, widely spread throughout the state, in the next 48 hours.
“The southwest monsoon has become active in Bihar,” said Patna Met director Animesh Chanda. He said on Saturday deep depression over Gangetic West Bengal close to southeast of Burdwan moved westwards and lay centered over Gangetic West Bengal and adjoining areas of Jharkhand, centering Ranchi. This has resulted in southwest monsoon becoming active in Bihar causing incessant rain in the state for the last 48 hours in Patna and other parts of the state.
Beginning June 16, a cyclonic circulation extending up to mid-tropospheric level lay over north Bay of Bengal-Bangladesh coast and under its influence a low pressure area was formed over northwest of Bay of Bengal and its neighborhood. It crossed West Bengal coast on the same day, which resulted in southwest monsoon advancing to the entire eastern India. The system would move west-northwestwards and would weaken gradually, Chanda added.
In the last 24 hours, 35 mm of rain was registered in Patna with Gaya and Bhagalpur recording 93 mm and 68.2 mm of rainfall, respectively. The maximum temperatures also dipped to five below normal in Patna while in Gaya and Bhagalpur it went down to 11 and seven below normal, respectively. Minimum temperature has also fallen down by 2 C in all these places.
From June 1, this season, Patna has recorded around 97 mm rainfall. The city recorded 11 mm and 25 mm rainfall, respectively on Friday and Saturday, while the mean total rainfall of Patna in June stands at 149.6 mm.
“Kalpana-1 cloud imagery shows convective clouds hovering over the sky, causing incessant rain,” a weatherman said.
Fairly wide spread rain would occur at most places in the state during the next 48 hours with the Met department predicting 50 mm rain on Monday in Patna with northeasterly wind speed of 29 kmph and maximum temperature further going down by a couple of degrees.
However, the state is still deficient of rain ranging from 20 per cent to 59 per cent. This was mainly due to delay of monsoon by about a week.