Kolkata: The city could be voting under a cloud cover next Wednesday and the polling could be followed by a thunderstorm, the Met office said. After a week-long scorching spell during which the maximum temperature repeatedly crossed 36°C, Kolkata could finally be lashed by thunderstorms from Sunday. There could be successive nor’westers that could keep the mercury below 35°C till the first week of May, the Regional Meteorological Centre said on Saturday. An RMC bulletin on Saturday said: “The upper air cyclonic circulation over east Bihar and neighbourhood at 0.9 km above mean sea level persists and subtropical westerly jet stream with core winds of the order of 80 knots at 12.6 km above mean sea level continues to prevail over East & Northeast India. In view of favourable wind pattern and strong moisture incursion from Bay of Bengal, thunderstorms and associated activities are likely to increase gradually.” “We expect a thunderstorm of moderate to severe intensity to strike parts of Kolkata along with North 24 Parganas, West Midnapore, Bankura, East and West Burdwan, Nadia and Murshidabad. These storms could be accompanied by lightning and wind speed at 50-60 km/hour. Thunderstorms will continue over the next three days across these south Bengal districts and on subsequent days till the first week of May,” said HR Biswas, deputy director-general of meteorology. In Kolkata, the maximum temperature dropped marginally to 35.6°C on Saturday. “It has been dropping slowly while conditions have been turning favourable for thunderstorms. On election day, the weather could remain comfortable since we expect a cloud cover to persist through the day. There could even be a thunderstorm,” Biswas added.
