Light to moderate rainfall coupled with thunderstorms triggered by the twin factors of moisture incursion from the Bay of Bengal and western disturbances lowered day temperature, damaged large cultivated tracts of blooming flowers and dampened the festive spirit a day ahead of Saraswati Puja in several south Bengal districts on Friday.
Sources in the weather department said the cloud cover hid the sun for most of Friday, dragging the day temperature down to 24.6 degrees Celsius, three notches below normal. The night temperature was several notches above normal but the overcast conditions lent a damp and cold feeling.
According to Met forecast, weather in south Bengal should improve from Saturday.
Even though conditions are expected to improve from Saturday, head of Regional Meteorological Centre in Calcutta, G.K. Das, warned: “Rainfall between 7cm and 11cm accompanied by thunderstorm and lightning could occur in some south Bengal districts.”
The weather began to turn damp from Thursday night and the Alipore weather department attributed it to moisture coming in from the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian sea.
Till Friday afternoon, the highest rainfall was recorded in Digha (27mm), followed by Dumdum (23mm) and Calcutta (23mm), Darjeeling (9mm), Jalpaiguri (9mm) and Sriniketan (8mm). Haldia recorded the lowest rainfall at 3mm.
“Schools opened on Thursday and preparations for Saraswati Puja were hit as many students who had been asked to come could not turn up because of the weather,” said a schoolteacher in Nadia.
The worst victims of the untimely rain in the middle of the wedding season were floriculturists. Even minor spells of rain over the next 24 hours might cause further damage to flowers in Nadia, Murshidabad, East Midnapore and Birbhum.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Ramzan Mullick, a farmer in Nadia’s Dhantala said: “I have incurred a loss of about Rs 2 lakh. I cultivated flowers like aster, chandramallika, rose, marigold, gladiolus on about five bighas. All the flowers had bloomed and I had a big order to supply to the decorators. But the entire production has been damaged.”
