18-km tall cumulonimbus over city caused 3-hour deluge: Weatherman

The description that has gone viral for the deluge that happened over the city since the early hours of Tuesday was: 'Extreme weather event'. But what actually happened?

- STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE

Weather experts said, the excessive precipitation was caused by a towering cumulonimbus cloud accumulation 18 km in height standing above south Kolkata around 2.30 a.m, resulting in extremely heavy showers over eastern, central and parts of northern Kolkata. The precipitation was far greater in the southern regions of the city, with between 100 mm and up to 300 mm of rainfall in some places in the space of three hours.

The cumulonimbus stack over Kolkata was detected by Cyclone Analysers, a nodal unofficial cyclone monitoring agency of the north Indian Ocean region, developed by a group of meteorologists. This theory, however, has not yet been confirmed by the IMD.