Kolkata: The city is likely to get intensified thunderstorm activities on Wednesday, the day of the polls. The IMD has issued an orange alert for Kolkata, where the showers are expected to be accompanied by lightning and gusty wind. The enhanced thunderstorm activity alert also extends to Howrah, North 24 Parganas and Hooghly. All these places have elections on Wednesday, along with East Burdwan, Bankura and West Midnapore.“The chance for thunderstorm activities in Kolkata on Wednesday is about 70%. While it is difficult to forecast actually when thunderstorm activities will hit the city, such showers usually happen mostly towards late afternoon and night. We can expect rain in the city on Thursday. The rain intensity could be high for 15-20 minutes, during which the wind speed is also likely to be gusty,” said Met scientist H R Biswas, head at Regional Meteorological Centre, Kolkata. While the temperature is likely to remain comfortable by the time voters start turning up at polling booths in the early morning, Met officials allayed fears of a scorching sun in the afternoon. They said the sky may stay partly cloudy before the thunderstorm activities begin.According to IMD’s special bulletin, the weather systems responsible for triggering the thundershowers include an upper-air cyclonic circulation over Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and its neighbourhood, an east-west trough from north Haryana to Manipur, a cyclonic circulation over west Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, a cyclonic circulation over Bangladesh and south Assam, along with a westerly trough.The same cloud mass pushed up by these systems caused large-scale rain in Bangladesh and some northeastern states on Tuesday. Now, it is on its way towards the city and neighbouring districts.While some places in Burdwan, Nadia, Bankura and Birbhum have been getting a few spells of rain since Monday night, Kolkata received light rain on Tuesday. While it ensured that the maximum temperature in the city stayed below normal, it did not provide much relief from the humidity. Kolkata’s maximum temperature on Tuesday, at 33.9°C, was 1.7 notches below normal. This parameter is likely to slip further on Wednesday.
