LAHORE: Fog blanketed most cities in Punjab and some portions of the plains in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as temperatures began to drop to their lowest of the winter across the country on Tuesday.

Motorway was closed from Sheikhupura to Lahore, Pindi Bhattian to Faisalabad and from Peshawar to Islamabad because of poor visibility caused by thick fog.

Lahore remained fog bound for nearly two hours in the morning. Afterwards it remained misty and cold.

Dry but cold weather, clear days, humidity in the air and calm wind develop fog in Pakistan and adjoining parts of India during this part of summer almost every year, paralysing life for many days. It is cleared only if it rains or if wind is strong.

Met office’s short-term forecast indicated foggy conditions in Punjab, plain areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and upper Sindh during the next two days. It will remain dry but extremely cold all over the country.

Fog developed in majority cities in Punjab, including Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Faisalabad, Khanpur, Jhang, Multan, Okara and Sahiwal, during early hours of Tuesday. It continued to persist till 1pm in Sahiwal, Jhang, Okara and some other cities.

The Met office said cold continental air prevailing over the country was creating extremely cold weather conditions in upper parts of the country.

Skardu was the coldest city with a minimum temperature of -8.4 degrees Celsius. It was followed by Astore -7.2 degrees Celsius, Gilgit -6 and Quetta -6.5.

Lahore’s maximum temperature was 19.1 degrees Celsius and the minimum on Monday night 5.2 degrees Celsius.

The Met office expects fog in the city also on Wednesday morning and further lowering of the temperatures as a result.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2014