West Bengal Weather, AQI and Fuel Prices

Why Check West Bengal Weather & Data?

West Bengal runs India's fourth-largest state economy, worth roughly ₹18.8 lakh crore in 2024-25 and growing 10.5 percent that year, and is home to over 9.9 crore people, the country's fourth most populous state. Kolkata's financial district and the Salt Lake Sector V IT corridor, home to offices from TCS, Wipro and Cognizant among others, sit barely 100 kilometres from the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove delta and one of India's most exposed coastlines to Bay of Bengal cyclones. That geography sets the state's real weather stakes: a cyclone tracking toward Sagar Island threatens the same low-lying delta villages every storm season, while the same system's outer bands can flood central Kolkata's streets and metro entrances within hours. This page's live weather, AQI and fuel numbers serve very different readers depending on where they sit, a Sundarbans fisherman deciding whether to take the boat out based on today's wind advisory, a Kolkata commuter checking whether the evening rain will flood the usual route home, a Digha or Mandarmoni hotel operator watching the cyclone track before a long weekend's bookings are locked in.

Sundarbans' Cyclones, Kolkata's Floods: West Bengal's Two Real Risks

The Bay of Bengal has sent a cyclone toward West Bengal's coast in nearly every storm season since 2019: Bulbul, Amphan, Yaas, Sitrang and Remal have each made landfall near, or grazed, Sagar Island and the Sundarbans in successive years. Cyclone Amphan, which made landfall on May 20, 2020, remains the benchmark: at least 80 people died in the state and the state government estimated total damage at roughly ₹1 lakh crore, about 61 percent of that year's state revenue. Cyclone Remal followed on May 26, 2024, making landfall between Sagar Island and Bangladesh's Khepupara; West Bengal recorded six deaths, nearly 29,500 houses damaged and more than 200,000 people evacuated to relief camps and cyclone shelters. Inland flooding is the second, less-publicised risk. In mid-September 2024, heavy rain combined with the Damodar Valley Corporation releasing over 250,000 cusecs of water from its dams submerged more than 1,000 square kilometres across Howrah, Hooghly, Paschim Medinipur, Purba Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia districts, killing three people and affecting close to 5 million residents, with roughly 2.5 lakh displaced. Every cyclone since 2019 has also pushed saline water further into Sundarbans farmland through breached embankments, a slower-moving but compounding threat in a region that depends on paddy and prawn farming.

How to Use West Bengal's Data for Daily Decisions

Fishermen operating out of Sundarbans hubs like Kakdwip, Namkhana and Diamond Harbour should check wind-speed and storm advisories before every trip between April and June and again from October to December, the two windows when most Bay of Bengal cyclones form and track toward the Bengal coast. Paddy farmers across the Gangetic plain should track the monsoon onset date each June, since West Bengal's rice-dependent districts need the rains on schedule to transplant on time. Kolkata commuters should check the evening rain forecast before leaving the office during the monsoon months, when short, intense bursts have repeatedly waterlogged Park Street, Gariahat and other low-lying stretches, and metro or bus routes can back up within the hour. Anyone booking a Digha, Mandarmoni or Sundarbans trip during cyclone season, April to June or October to November, should watch the IMD's cyclone tracker rather than trust a clear morning sky, since storms in this basin can intensify within 24 to 48 hours of landfall. Durga Puja pandal organisers and visitors, especially in early October when the festival can fall during the tail of the withdrawing monsoon, should check the short-range forecast before finalising outdoor pandal-hopping routes and immersion-day logistics.

West Bengal's Seasonal Calendar

Monsoon normally reaches Kolkata around June 10-11 and sub-Himalayan North Bengal a few days earlier, holding through September and delivering most of the state's roughly 1,600mm average annual rainfall. Summer runs March to May, comparatively mild in Kolkata by North Indian standards but genuinely severe in the western districts of Bankura and Purulia, where recorded highs have touched 48°C. Two distinct cyclone windows bracket the year, April to June and October to December, when Bay of Bengal systems most often form and track toward the Bengal-Bangladesh coast. Durga Puja, the state's largest cultural and economic event, falls in late September or October and regularly overlaps with the tail of the withdrawing monsoon or the season's first post-monsoon cyclone watch. Winter, December to February, is short but genuinely cool and the driest, most stable stretch for travel and outdoor events. Cyclone landfalls have shut Kolkata's airport before, as happened during Cyclone Yaas in May 2021, worth checking before booking a tight flight connection through the city in peak cyclone months.

West Bengal vs Nearby States: Weather & Data Comparison

Figures from IMD climate records, government disaster reports and dated news coverage; coastline figures reflect a 2024-25 government remeasurement that revised several states' figures upward. Treat this as a broad reference, not a single-source dataset.