The season’s eighth Nor'wester hit Jamshedpur, Ranchi and several other parts of the state on Thursday afternoon resulting in widespread lightning and thunderstorms.

The summer saviour storm accompanied by lightning, thunder and rain covered several districts including Chhatra, Gumla Hazaribagh, Latehar , Lohardaga, Ramgarh, Ranchi, Garhwa , Palamu, Bokaro, Giridih, Khunti Koderma, West Singhbhum, Simdega and East Singhbhum.

Jamshedpur and its adjoining areas encountered the Nor'wester around 3.30pm. The wind speed was around 40 kmph. Thunderstorms and rain lasted for about an hour resulting in an abrupt fall in day's reading.

Several places in Ranchi district, Khunti, Ramgarh and Chaibasa in West Singhbhum also experienced the summer saviour storm at around 3 pm followed by light showers.

Jamshedpur recorded around 15 mm of rain. Several other places including Gumla, Hazaribagh and Koderma witnessed over 5 mm of rain.

IMD's Ranchi Met Centre confirmed the Nor'wester.

"An east -west trough was running from the cyclonic circulation over northern parts of Central Madhya Pradesh to Tripura across Jharkhand and Gangetic Bengal at 0.9 Km above mean sea level. The trough helped the weather system in triggering the Nor'wester activity,” said a duty officer at the Ranchi Met Centre.

A weather analyst at the Patna Meteorological Centre said, "Satellite pictures suggested the storm has hit different places across Jharkhand with gusty winds resulting in light to moderate rain."

In its afternoon bulletin, IMD's Ranchi Met Centre said thunderstorms and rain would continue to take place in Jharkhand till May 10. "Partly cloudy sky with possibility of light to moderate rain and thunderstorm activity is expected for the next four days," said the bulletin.

Met statistics revealed that due to frequent Nor'wester activity the maximum reading has come down considerably in most parts of Jharkhand.

The day's reading was four to five notches below normal in most of the districts due to frequent thunderstorms and rain.