Darkness at 3pm as 12km tall cloud mass pummels Kolkata with 100mm of rain – Times of India

Kolkata: The into darkness on Wednesday afternoon as a 10-12km-long cloud mass engulfed the city, forcing vehicles to turn the headlights on. Even the street lamps had to be switched on at many places by 2.40pm. The cloud mass floated into the city from Bangladesh, leading to a sudden and premature onset of evening darkness.
Weathermen explained that the cloud was so thick that it managed to cut out even the faintest rays of the sun, leading to almost complete darkness. A torrential rain and frequent lightnings followed the clouds. Kolkata received 97.1mm rain between 8.30am and 5.30 pm on Wednesday.
The cloud mass of this density and height had not passed through the city in a long time, said weathermen. It had been triggered by the monsoon trough that now passes between Uttar Pradesh and north Bay of Bengal, cutting across Bengal and Bangladesh. “This gigantic cloud mass had floated in from Bangladesh and it travelled across North and South 24 Parganas into Kolkata. While parts of south Kolkata were affected, north, east and central Kolkata bore the brunt of the thunderstorm and the rain that it triggered,” said Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) director G K Das.
The inclement weather forced the diversion of four flights that were coming in to land at Kolkata. IndiGo flights from Bengaluru, Chennai, Patna and Dibrugarh were all diverted to Bhubaneswar.
At some places in central and north Kolkata, the rain was so heavy and visibility so poor that traffic came to a crawl. “Despite using wipers, visibility was almost nil. I decided to park my car and waited almost 40 minutes for the rain to stop,” said Jaydip Ray, who had been driving to his workplace in central Kolkata
For an hour between 2.30pm and 3.30 pm, the torrential downpour reduced visibility and made the condition treacherous to maintain operations. Initially though, it was north Kolkata that appeared to be bearing the brunt with localities like Ultadanga, Maniktala, Belgachhia and Beliaghata areas recording over 50mm rainfall between 2pm and 3pm that led to waterlogging. Later in the afternoon, Ballygunge, Jodhpur Park, Mominpur, Kalight and Behala, too, received heavy showers.