LAHORE: Rain that lashed a number of cities on Wednesday dropped temperatures by many degrees, reintroducing chill in the air at a time when the long harsh summer starts in the country.

Lahore just received scattered showers, but the impact of moderate to heavy rain else in the northeastern Punjab and upper parts of the country was marked.

The maximum temperature dropped to 23.5 degrees Celsius which was over 30 degrees a few days ago.

The northeastern cities in Punjab that received rain experienced even lower maximum temperature.

It was 18 degrees C in Sialkot, 19 in Gujrat, Mandi Bahauddin, Jhelum and Gujranwala, 7.5 in Murree, 16.5 in Islamabad and 17 in Chakwal.

Lower Dir received 69mm of rain, Balakot and Rawalakot 51mm (each), Pattan 45mm, Parachinar 43mm, Muzaffarabad 42mm, Islamabad Airport 40mm, Kohat, Johrabad and Murree 37mm (each), Kakul 36mm, Sialkot Cantt and Islamabad Zero Point 33mm (each), Chakwal 29mm, Sialkot Airport 28mm, Saidu Sharif 27mm, Mandi Bahauddin and Dir 25mm (each), Gujrat and Peshawar Airport 24mm (each), Sargodha 23mm, Kalam 22mm, Jhelum, Kotli and Mangla 20mm (each), Peshawar City 16mm, Garhi Dupatta, Gujranwala and Cherat 15mm (each), Malamjabba 14mm, Drosh 11mm and Zhob 8mm.

The Met office reported that the persisting westerly wave moved away eastwards. The fresh western low pressure weather system swelled and lay over Balochistan, Sindh and northwestern parts of the country.

And this system will give partly cloudy to cloudy weather with thunderstorm/rain along with relative heavy falls and hailstorm (at a few places) in Lahore in the next 24 hours.

There are strong chances of widespread rain with scattered thunderstorm along with snowfall over the hills and gusty winds over Fata, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, Kashmir and Punjab (including Islamabad).

Isolated to scattered heavy falls may ensue over northeastern Balochistan, Fata, upper and central Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir, Upper Punjab, rising their water level.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2015

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