ALMOST on cue, an unforeseen cloudburst above Chitral has devastated a district, left some 30 people dead at the time of writing, and served up a grim reminder on the eve of Eid that in spite of years of ferocious monsoon weather, Pakistan remains as vulnerable as it ever was to the ravages of climate.

No lessons have been learnt, no preparations have been made, and no capacity to forecast such events has been added.

It has been repeated all through the past few years: the preparation for extreme weather events begins with improving our early warning capability, followed by building a meaningful response plan.

Yet villagers in Ursoon were caught completely unawares when a cloudburst unleashed flash floods, wiping away their hamlet and loved ones, while Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan were hit by ferocious winds and rains that caused widespread damage.

The same episode was witnessed last year, when a cloudburst caused torrential rains which triggered multiple simultaneous glacial lake outburst floods that left the whole of Chitral district devastated. That episode ought to have taught us that Pakistan is susceptible to weather patterns coming from the west as well as the east, and that our weather radars — outdated as they are — that face westward are either not operating or unable to track the development of adverse weather patterns above the mountains.

Currently, the majority of our weather radars are pointed eastward to monitor the arrival of monsoon clouds, which only show up on the radars once they are above Rajasthan. Most floods receive less than 48 hours of warning, woefully inadequate for our times and requirements.

If there is one thing that successive monsoon seasons since 2010 have taught us, it is that each season brings extreme weather events in some shape or form, from the west or the east, and sometimes also from the Arabian sea in the south.

Over these years, it is unfortunate that our weather forecasting system has remained outdated and dilapidated.

The Met office, meanwhile, has been left standing on the door of the government asking for the funds to upgrade the equipment so as to be able to warn the country with more accuracy and better lead times once storm clouds begin to gather. But given the priorities of our government — roads, bridges and highways — the funds have not been released throughout this time period, nor has the government taken any serious note of climate-related vulnerabilities over almost half a decade.

The result is that we find ourselves flying blind into yet another monsoon season, which predictably enough, has opened with ferocious rains causing the loss of life and widespread damage one more time.

What will it take for the government to wake up from its fevered obsession with visible infrastructure projects to realise that strengthening the country’s defences against the ravages of weather is also an overriding priority?

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2016