KARACHI: The sun continued to shower its wrath on the metropolis as the temperature hit 44 degrees Celsius on Sunday, said a meteorological department official, forecasting similar weather on Monday as well.

Responding to Dawn’s queries, the Met official said Sunday was the second day in May when the mercury touched the 44°C mark. The first day was May 3.

Karachi was the second hottest place in the province on Sunday following closely the Thar desert town of Mithi, located in the southeast of the province, with 45°C temperature.

The Met office had already issued a heatwave advisory owing to which emergency measures have been taken up in city hospitals. Unannounced loadshedding and faults, however, kept disrupting power supply to various localities of the city, thus increasing miseries of the people.

The residents have been advised by health professionals to avoid venturing out unnecessarily in the open and avoid direct contact with the sun. They have also been asked to wear loose and light coloured clothes.

As the entry of the sea breeze was restricted in the city by dry continental winds that were also carrying dust, the mercury climbed up on the scale early in the day.

City streets and markets wore a deserted look while thin traffic was witnessed on roads, as fearing dry and hot continental winds that blew at a speed of 19 knots during the day, many of the Karachiites preferred to remain indoors.

The weatherman further said that the minimum temperature recorded in the city was 26.5°C.

Humidity — the amount of moisture in the atmosphere — was 54 per cent in the morning and 8pc in the evening.

He added that the weather was expected to remain very hot and dry on Monday and the maximum temperature was expected to be between 42°C and 44°C.

He said the entire province remained in the grip of heatwave coming in from Balochistan and high temperatures were recorded in many towns of Sindh on Sunday.

The Met official maintained that some of the towns where 40 plus degrees Celsius temperature was recorded included: Badin, Thatta, Mirpurkhas, Moenjodaro and Nawabshah (43°C); Dadu, Hyderabad, Larkana, Padidan (42°C); Jacobabad, Rohri, Sukkur (41.5°C); and Sukrand (41°C).

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2018