Bhubaneswar: Twin cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar were drenched by the season’s first significant monsoon showers early Monday morning.
The sudden downpour brought relief to residents, who had been grappling with intense humidity over the past weeks. The prolonged pause to monsoon since June 15 with its northern limits passing through Phulbani and Koraput had replaced the rainy weather with stagnant heat in the state.
“Under the inf
luence of the southwest monsoon, active cloud cover has formed over the Bay of Bengal. As a result, monsoon rains are continuing across many places in the state,” stated senior meteorologist Umasankar Das.
This comes three days after a trough triggered rainfall across interior, northern and some coastal parts of Odisha.
Cuttack received the highest rainfall of 88.6 mm during the day while he state capital also witnessed rainfall in the evening, which brought the temperatures down to 25 degrees Celsius from 34 degrees Celsius.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), isolated heavy rain may occur in Odisha on June 22-23. Isolated to scattered rainfall is likely from June 22-28. Isolated thunderstorm, lightning and gusty winds (speed reaching 40-50 kmph gusting to 60 kmph) may also occur during June 23-25. There is also a warning for thundersquall (wind speed reaching 50-60 kmph gusting to 70 kmph) on June 22.
The MeT office further stated that conditions are favourable for further advance of southwest monsoon into some more parts of Odisha around June 23.