LAHORE: Suspension of gas supply or its low pressure on Sunday made it difficult for the people in the length and breadth of the country to brave extremely cold weather being generated by dense fog.

Fog that further intensified cold weather continued to persist and the Met office forecast the same weather conditions during the next week.

“Dense fog is likely to persist over the plains of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and upper Sindh during the next week,” said the Met office.

Sunday was the coldest day in many cities like Sargodha because of dense and ever persisting fog. The worst hit was Sargodha where the day’s maximum temperature was just 8 degrees C. It was 8.8 degrees C (each) in Mandi Bahauddin and Sialkot, 8.6 in Gujranwala, 9 (each) in Okara and Jhelum and 10 in Bahawalnagar.

Lahore remained fog bound most of the time and its maximum temperature was 10.2. Like in other worst hit cities, people in Lahore found it difficult to brave the extremely cold weather because of suspension of gas supply or its low pressure. The indoors were as cold as were the outdoors as there was no gas for heaters or even for cooking meals.

The Met office reported fog in Bahawalnagar, Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Faisalabad, Jhang, Jhelum, Khanpur, Lahore, Mandi Bahauddin, Mangla, Multan, Okara, Sialkot, Toba Tek Singh and Rahim Yar Khan.

Motorway from Pindi Bhattian to Lahore and the National Highway from Rawalpindi to Rahim Yar Khan too remained blanketed with thick fog during last night and on Sunday. Traffic moved at a slow place because of poor visibility caused by dense fog.

Roads within the worst hit cities including Lahore too were dark, making travel at night and in the morning extremely difficult, especially for motorcyclists.

The Met office reported disruption of flight operations at the Lahore, Sialkot and Faisalabad airports.

It said temperatures remained very low over the mountains. The minimum temperature in Skardu was -8 degrees C , in Kalat -7, Risalpur -6, Quetta, Gilgit, Dir and Astore -3 (each).

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

Very cold and partly cloudy to cloudy weather was expected over most parts of the country with shallow to dense fog over plain areas of Punjab (including Islamabad), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and upper Sindh. Further, isolated thunderstorm/rain with snowfall over the hills may occur over Kurrum agency, Peshawar, Malakand, Hazara, Quetta, Zhob, Rawalpindi (including Islamabad) divisions, Gilgit-Baltistan and adjoining areas of Kashmir.

Published in Dawn, December 22th, 2014