Monsoon likely to hit Kolkata later this week: Met

KOLKATA: The Met office is hopeful of the monsoon keeping its date with Kolkata between Thursday and Friday, given that all the weather systems that activate the onset of the rains are in place. A low pressure system, the most important development to usher in the monsoon, has already started developing over the Bay of Bengal.
Keeping a close watch on this low-pressure system, director (weather) at Regional Meteorological Centre G K Das said, “A low-pressure area has formed over east central Bay of Bengal. As this system starts moving towards the Odisha and Andhra coast, it will start bringing in pre-monsoon showers before the actual arrival of the southwest monsoon.”
As predicted by the Met office, a cyclonic circulation over east-central Bay of Bengal transformed into a low-pressure area by Tuesday. This system is expected to intensify further into a depression, paving the way for the arrival of monsoon in many parts of Bengal as well as neighbouring Sikkim. “We can expect the monsoon to hit parts of both north and south Bengal, including Kolkata, between Thursday and Friday. The estimated date of monsoon’s arrival to Kolkata is June 11. We see no delay this year,” Das added.
The city has been frequented by spells of thundershowers in the past few days. Currently, clouds formed over the Bay are reaching the land regularly to cause these thundershowers.
Meteorologists said the estimated date of arrival of monsoon was allowed an error margin of three days. This year, monsoon hit the Kerala coast by June 1, right on time, and by Tuesday, it covered most parts of Tamil Nadu.
Last year, monsoon was late at arriving on the Kerala coast. On reaching there on June 8, the rains arrived in Kolkata on June 21, around 10 days behind schedule.