LAHORE: All rivers in Punjab are likely to be in “very high” to “exceptionally high” flood from Sept 5 to 7 because of expected intensification of the current spell of fairly widespread rains reported from various parts of the country.

The spell is being generated by the first well-marked low pressure of the monsoon season that is moving towards Pakistan via Indian Rajasthan, moist current from the Bay of Bengal and a trough of westerly wave persisting over northern parts of the country.

In its warning on Wednesday, the Pakistan Meteorological Department and its Flood Forecasting Bureau in Lahore said the low pressure area was likely to move northwards (to Pakistan) in “the next 24 hours”. The inflow of moisture from the Bay of Bengal would also become strong during the “next three days”.

The system is capable of producing widespread thundershowers with scattered heavy to very heavy rains and isolated extremely heavy rains over the upper catchments of the rivers Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi and Sutlej in the next three days. This rain will generate very high to exceptionally high flood in the Chenab and Ravi rivers, along with their nullahs, and high to very high flood in the Jhelum and Sutlej rivers from Sept 5 to 7.

Widespread thundershowers with gusty winds could be reported from Punjab (with scattered heavy to very heavy rains in Bahawalpur, Sahiwal, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Lahore, Gujranwala and Rawalpindi divisions, Islamabad and isolated heavy rains over Dera Ghazi Khan and Multan divisions), Sindh (with isolated heavy rains over Mirpurkhas, Sukkur, Hyderabad and Karachi divisions) and Kashmir (with heavy to very heavy rains).

Fairly widespread thundershowers with gusty winds could be reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (with isolated to scattered heavy to very heavy rains over Malakand, Mardan and Hazara divisions) and Gilgit-Baltistan. Also, scattered thundershowers with gusty winds are expected over Fata, southern and north-eastern Balochistan (with isolated heavy rains over eastern parts).

Meanwhile, it continued to rain in different parts of the country on Wednesday. Rain in Lahore began in the late afternoon after dark clouds covered the sky. It was heavy around the airport area, central and southern parts of the city, and was continuing till the filing of this report.

Roads were inundated and traffic was disrupted. The temperature dropped, making the weather pleasant.

The Met office reported that Faisalabad received 73mm of rain, Kotli 64, Rawalakot 53, Garhi Dupatta 42, Muzaffarabad 38, Jhelum 29, Bahawalnagar 27, Badin and Mangla 25 each, Mithi 23, Mandi Bahauddin 22, Lahore Jail Road 21 and Airport 18, Gujranwala 20, Gujrat 18, Skardu 17, Sialkot Airport 16, Kakul 14, Murree 13, Sahiwal 12, Balakot 10, Sialkot Cantonment 7, Okara 6, Jhang and Bahawalpur 4 each, and Astore and Sargodha 3 each.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2014