A feisty spell of rain, wind and hailstones lashed the city and its outskirts on Tuesday evening, cracking the windshield of a plane, uprooting trees and disrupting traffic.

The next few days are likely to be wet, too, but the rain will be scattered, the Met office said.

At least two trees fell on cars in Salt Lake — in front of Nicco Park and near Laboni Island. A third tree was uprooted on Canal Circular Road, in Maniktala, around 6.33pm. No one was injured.

The rain, preceded by and accompanied by gusts of wind, started in Calcutta around 5.30pm. The first bout of showers ended within 30 minutes but a second started soon after.

Till 8.30pm on Tuesday, the Calcutta Municipal Corporation’s drainage pumping station in Dhapa recorded 65mm of rain, the heaviest in the city. The stations in New Market and Cossipore recorded around 25mm and 14mm, respectively.

For a few minutes from 6.45pm, the wind blew at more than 50kmph in the city. The Alipore Met office recorded a maximum windspeed of 54kmph.

Hailstones cracked the windshield of an Air Asia Airbus A320 shortly after it took off from the city at 4.31pm. The Bagdogra-bound flight, carrying 173 passengers, returned to the airport at 4.50pm.

Officials said the passengers were flown out on another aircraft.

“An anti-cyclonic circulation over the Bay of Bengal sent loads of moisture into the land. The easterly winds interacted with the north-westerly winds to trigger the rain,” said Sanjib Bandyopadhyay, deputy director general, India Meteorological Department.

The heat generated on Monday and Tuesday — the Celsius had crossed 30 degrees on both days — also led to the formation of rain-bearing clouds, Bandyopadhyay said.

Around 6.30pm, the rain had affected visibility on Park Street and Red Road and in several other pockets of the city.

A part of the tarpaulin roof of a temporary shelter at Park Circus Maidan, where women are holding a vigil against the new citizenship regime, was damaged because of the rain and wind.

Some of the protesters huddled under the permanent structure, smaller than the temporary one.

Vehicles on the airport-bound flank of EM Bypass and other roads crawled for around 30 minutes as a tree fell on the bonnet of a car in front of Nicco Park. Police said the driver and two others in the car were unhurt.

It took nearly 30 minutes for a team of policemen and civic officials to slice the trunk of the tree and get it off the vehicle. A crane later towed away the car.

Another tree fell on a car near Labony Island, an officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.