LAHORE: Dense fog continued to persist in Punjab, plains of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and upper Sindh for the third day running on Saturday, keeping the weather chilly and travel on highways risky.

Parts of the motorway and almost the entire National Highway from Rawalpindi to Rahim Yar Khan also remained fog bound, forcing slow movement of traffic for safety.

Lahore remained blanketed with dense fog till noon. A thick layer of mist nevertheless continued to hang over it till 4pm. Afterwards fog again started covering the city.

The maximum temperature was 12 degrees Celsius and the minimum 3 degrees Celsius, and the little difference between the two made the weather chilly.

The Met office reported dense fog almost all over the province, in the plains of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in Sukkur. The worst hit were Sialkot, Faisalabad and Mandi Bahauddin where fog was never cleared.

The maximum temperature in Mandi Bahauddin was 9 degrees Celsius, in Sahiwal and Sargodha 9.5 and in Sialkot 9.2 because of the dense fog.

The Met office forecast very cold and partly cloudy weather in Lahore in the next 24 hours with fog in the morning.

It will remain very cold and partly cloudy weather over most parts of the country with fog over plain areas of Punjab (including Islamabad), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and upper Sindh. Isolated frost will ensue over Balochistan and Sindh after midnight. Furthermore, thunderstorm/light rain with light snowfall over the hills may occur at one or two places of Malakand division and Gilgit-Baltistan.

The motorway and the National Highway will also remain blanketed with dense fog during the night and on Sunday morning. Flight schedule at Lahore, Sialkot, Faisalabad and Islamabad airports is likely to be disrupted due to fog.

Meanwhile, sub-zero temperatures continued to persist over upper parts of the country. Skardu was the coldest town with -9 degrees Celsius minimum temperature. It was followed by Kalat -6, Quetta, Gilgit, Chitral and Dir -3, and Parachinar and Kalam -2.

Published in Dawn December 21th , 2014