A spell of heavy rain on Tuesday afternoon brought temporary relief from the heat and humidity that Calcuttans had been subjected to for the past few days.

A shell of thunderclouds that descended from the western districts of Bengal led to the rain that started around 4pm. The Met office recorded around 60mm of rain in Alipore.

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Patuli was the wettest area in the city, recording more than 70mm of rain, according to data collected from the water pumping stations of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. Places in south Calcutta got more rain than the north. Joka received around 50mm and New Market 35mm.

Traffic crawled on several roads because of the rain. Diamond Harbour Road and Rashbehari Avenue had heavy traffic around 8pm, much after the rain had stopped.

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The mercury hovered around 34 degrees Celsius for several days at a stretch. The minimum relative humidity, a measure of the moisture content in the air during the driest part of the day, was consistently on the higher side for the past few days.

The rain was accompanied by a series of lightning on Tuesday.

“The pent-up heat and humidity led to the formation of the thunderclouds,” a Met official said.

The Met office has forecast thunderstorms in the coming days as well.