Downpour brings relief from heat

Ranchi: After sweltering heat for the past several days, residents rejoiced as a nearly two-hour downpour brought relief on Thursday.The city recorded 40.6 mm of rainfall coupled with strong winds and thunderstorms ahead of the monsoon’s expected arrival this weekend.The showers inundated several parts of the city, including the area near Ranchi railway station. Strong winds uprooted trees at multiple locations at Club Road and Kutchery Chowk, briefly affecting vehicular movement and power supply in some neighbourhoods. However, no casualties were reported.During the rainy spell, flight operations at Birsa Munda Airport were unaffected, except for a Jamshedpur-bound chartered flight being diverted to Ranchi, airport director Vinod Kumar said.Jamshedpur recorded 11 mm of rain, Chaibasa 10 mm and Jagannathpur in West Singhbhum 15 mm on Thursday.Ranchi IMD office deputy director Abhishek Anand said that the southwest monsoon is likely to hit the state by Saturday or Sunday. “An orange alert has been issued for thunderstorm and lightning along with strong winds gusting up to 50-60 kmph at isolated places over Dhanbad, Bokaro, Koderma, Hazaribag, Ranchi, Khunti and Ramgarh districts on Friday and Saturday,” he added.“The state is likely to record normal to above normal maximum temperatures in the range of 31-40°C from June 12 to 18. Similarly, normal to above normal maximum temperature is expected in the state from June 19 to 25. The daytime temperature likely to lie in the range of 33-40 °C during the week,” the extended range forecast issued by the IMD’s Ranchi office stated issued an extended range forecast for the state, predicting weather conditions from June 12 to June 25. the extended range forecast predicted.