10 July 2004	Saturday	21 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

LAHORE, July 9: Lahore and several other cities in the Punjab, the NWFP and the Northern Areas received rain on Friday because of a westerly disturbance, breaking the long spell of hot and humid weather.

In Lahore, the early morning rain provided the much needed respite to the people, braving extremely muggy conditions for the past over one week. The strong wind that accompanied the rain was cool much to the delight of the people. The weather remained pleasant afterwards with clouds covering the sky almost the entire day.

The maximum temperature was 33 degrees Celsius and the minimum 22.6 degrees Celsius with 86 per cent humidity in the morning and 83 per cent in the evening. The local Met office recorded 17mm of rain at its Jail Road observatory and 10mm at the airport.

According to the chief meteorologist, the rain was caused by a westerly wave which passed over to India in the afternoon. Another westerly wave over northern Afghanistan might give some more rain in the Northern Areas and up to Lahore during the next 24 hours, he said.

The flood forecasting division reported fairly widespread rain of light to moderate intensity with one or two heavy falls over the upper catchments of all major rivers along with Gujranwala and Dera Ismail Khan divisions. Scattered rain of light to moderate intensity was also reported from Peshawar, Kohat, Lahore, Sargodha and Rawalpindi divisions.

It predicted scattered light to moderate rain over the upper catchments of all rivers along with Kohat, Peshawar, Sargodha, Gujranwala and Lahore divisions during the next 24 hours.

Muzaffarabad received 77mm of rain, Mangla 70mm, Sialkot 53mm, Attock 52mm, Shakargarh 49mm, Marala 47mm, Murree 43mm, Kohat 40mm, Islamabad 34mm, Kamra and Malamjabba 30mm each, Jhelum 29mm, Sargodha 26mm, Mandi Bahauddin 25mm, Kotli 24mm, Chakwal 21mm, Mianwali 20mm and Naushehra 17mm.