Rain respite sets belated monsoon in

Two women wade through water on a road in the capital's Rajarbagh area after a heavy rain yesterday afternoon. PHOTO: STAR

Heavy rains in the capital and light to moderate showers at many other parts of the country yesterday made the people breathe easy after days of sultry weather, with weathermen saying it is a precursor to the rather belated monsoon.

Residents in the capital heaved a sigh of relief as an afternoon shower fed by a westerly low helped cool down the persisting heat because of the delayed monsoon. Dhaka experienced 50 mm of rainfall, according to the Met office.

Tangail also experienced 27 mm of rain, Sri Mongol 7 mm, Comilla 5 mm and Khulna 2 mm, according to an incomplete evening report of the Dhaka met office.

Rains clogging many city roads and temporarily inundating low-lying peripheries could not keep many, haunted by days of heat wave, from getting soaked in jubilation.

"We can take it as a prelude to the monsoon setting in. Within the next 72 hours, the southwest monsoon is expected to spread all over Bangladesh," forecast Begum Arjumand Habib, deputy director at the Storm Warning Centre, Dhaka.

Recalling the erratic monsoon pattern in 1972, the weather expert noted that after many years the country this time again experienced a delayed monsoon, largely because of a strong westerly low.

Experts say weather has become unpredictable these days so much so that both the Indian weathermen and NASA failed to predict the delayed monsoon this year.