After a long winter, Feb gives summer vibes, min crosses 19°C

Kolkata: The wintry vibe from the city has disappeared with the night temperature inching towards 20 degrees and the day temperature crossing the 30-degree mark. Met officials said the dry north westerly wind pace is already in the wane. The moist and warm wind from the Bay of Bengal is expected to invade the city soon.While the Met office has predicted thunderstorm activities between Monday and Tuesday for some coastal areas in Bengal, it is not certain whether Kolkata and Howrah will fall into this thunder storm zone.
The minimum temperature rose to 19.2 degrees Celsius in Kolkata on Friday. Even as it was still marginally below normal by 0.3 degrees, it was a jump of more than two notches from Thursday, making the nights warmer. The last time the city logged minimum temperature of 19 degrees was on Nov 21. Since then it had remained below 19 constantly for three months, before the Friday jump. "The night temperature is likely to increase slightly further and hit 21 degrees in the next two to three days. We can expect the day maximum temperature to fluctuate between 30 and 32 in the next one week," said meteorologist HR Biswas, head of Regional Meteorological Centre Kolkata. Winter 2025-26 had seen chilly nights with record-breaking mercury which had plunged to season's lowest of 10.2 degrees on Jan 6. Despite gradual rise it has stayed below normal mark on 19 days this Feb out of the 20 days.The maximum temperature reached 30 degrees on Wednesday and has been above the normal mark for the past three consecutive days. It breached 30 degrees on Friday to reach 31.1 degrees, 1.1 higher than normal. Met officials blamed the weakening north westerly wind. Even as Kolkata is still getting the dry wind its pace is too feeble to arrest the mercury from rising. In a day or two, this wind system is expected to be overtaken by the warm and moist wind from the Bay of Bengal. Met officials said that the moisture injected by the wind will be potent enough to form thunder clouds. Meteorologists said that along with the change in wind pattern, an expected western disturbance may impact the city's temperature in the next few days. "Due to the moisture incursion, we are expecting thunder cloud formation. While there is high possibility of moderate to light thundershower activities along the coastal areas of East and West Midnapore, South and North 24 Parganas and Jhargram between Monday and Tuesday, it is not yet clear if Kolkata and Howrah will get its share of rain during this period," added Das. Even if it does not rain in the city, it is certain that the city sky will have some cloud cover.