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| People in Siliguri brought out their woollens on Tuesday. Picture by Kundan Yolmo |
Siliguri, March 13: A steady drizzle from last night coupled with an overcast sky today brought down the temperature in all six districts of north Bengal and Sikkim and made people scurry for their woollens once more.
The showers have brought down the maximum temperature in Siliguri by almost nine degrees Celsius with the cloud cover adding to the chill.
“It did not rain heavily and in some places the rainfall recorded was as meagre as 1mm. But the constant drizzle brought down the maximum temperature compared to yesterday. The minimum temperature, however, was more or less similar to the previous few days,” said Subir Sarkar, the in-charge of the North Bengal University’s weather station.
He added that the maximum temperature in Siliguri was 29 degrees Celsius yesterday, but this afternoon the mercury plunged to 20.3 degrees Celsius. The minimum temperature remained 16 degrees Celsius like yesterday, Sarkar said.
The average maximum temperature recorded here in the past one week was around 28 degrees Celsius and the minimum temperature hovered around 18 degrees Celsius.
Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Malda, both the Dinajpurs and Sikkim received rainfall throughout the day. Darjeeling was cloudy much like Gangtok that saw sunshine for only around 30 minutes late in the afternoon. In the plains the sky was overcast most of the time with intermittent drizzles.
Sarkar said it was normal to have such a weather at this time of the year. “Western disturbance is leading to this scattered rainfall, which is natural. There might be some more bouts of rainfall till the first week of April,” he said.
Records with the India Meteorological Department show that the sub-Himalayan Bengal and Sikkim have received rainfall in March for the past five years and it was normal to have 3.4mm-9.7mm precipitation in the first week of the month. But this year, the first March rain was last night.
“The weather is likely to remain the same in the next 24 hours as rain-bearing clouds (generated from the western disturbances) are hovering in the sky and it will bring more shower to the region,” Indranil Sengupta, the assistant meteorological officer of the Regional Met Office of Jalpaiguri, said. He added that there was no forecast for heavy rain for the next few days.
Tea experts said such showers were good for the crop that has started yielding the first flush in Darjeeling, the Dooars and the Terai.
“Substantial rainfall at the beginning of the season helps to get an excellent yield. We want more rainfall in the next few weeks,” Sumit Ghosh, the additional secretary of Tea Association of India, said.
The season of the first flush is from March to mid-May.
Santanu Chowdhury, a resident of Siliguri, said he had packed away all his woollens. “But we scrambled for them today. It was a welcome departure from the warm spell.” Swati Bhattacharya, a school teacher, said: “It has become very cool since last night. There was less attendance in school today because of the weather.”(Telegraph)
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