LAHORE, Aug 17: Heavy rain in the upper catchments of three rivers and Gujranwala and Sialkot districts flooded the storm water drains on Tuesday.

It was still raining heavily in the Indian Punjab in the evening and the Flood Forecasting Division (FFD) expected a rise in the water Chenab level during the next 24 hours. There was no danger of the high floods, it said.

Scattered rain of light to moderate intensity was also reported over Rawalpindi, Lahore, Sargodha, Kohat, Peshawar and Faisalabad divisions along with the upper catchment of Indus.

The FFD predicted moderate to heavy rain at many places over the upper catchments of all the major rivers along with eastern, northeastern and central Punjab and Central NWFP during the next 24 hours. There were also chances of isolated light rain over lower Sindh and northern Balochistan.

The spell of rain which started on Monday has been generated by strong monsoon currents from the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian sea which met a westerly wave and a strong upper air trough in the Northern Areas.

Lahore also received rain which was moderate in Township. Weather remained pleasant throughout the day because of strong wind and cloudy weather. According to Chief Meteorologist Shaukat Ali Awan, it rained heavily particularly in the upper catchments of the rivers Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej, flooding the nullahs like Aik, Dhek and Palkhoo in Sialkot region. They were in medium flood, he said.

He said it was raining heavily in the Indian Punjab on Tuesday evening but added that this would not generate floods in the rivers because of the low water flow there. There could be low or below level of flood in these rivers, hoping that the river Chenab could have a medium level flood at the most.