ISLAMABAD: With higher than usual temperatures, April and May are expected to have unusually more dust and hail storms, the Met Office said on Tuesday.

“The weather is likely to turn warmer at the end of March. Surface heating is more likely to happen resulting in frequent dust and hail storms. Such events are expected in central and southern Punjab and Sindh,” said a Met Office expert in atmospheric sciences, Dr Khalid Malik.

The below normal rains and snowfall this winter are also a result of the higher temperature, he said, and that snow melt is also expected sooner than usual and will fill up water reservoirs and the canal systems.

“Farmers are less likely to face water shortage in the next few months,” he said.

Higher temperatures mean snow melt is expected sooner than usual, filling water reservoirs, canal systems

He added that climate change has caused the monsoon system to move back and forth some 100 kilometres from east to west.

“The slight changes in temperature have also altered the height of the monsoon systems in the last few years and cause abrupt and unusually heavy rain showers. This phenomenon has been experienced after the 1980s when temperature changes started occurring,” he said.

He added that Islamabad will become warmer still due to the loss of green cover and that the loss of trees has destroyed the major source of moisture in the atmosphere, which used to cause rain after an extremely warm day.

Asked about the new weather radar system installed at the Met Office in H-8, he said the unit will become operational before the monsoon season.

“Unlike the old radar, the new one will enable the Met Office to predict weather some 250 kilometres beyond the Margalla Hills. The system will also make ‘now-casting’ possible, enabling the Met Office to make weather predictions as early as two to six hours,” he said.

Asked about the efficiency of weather forecast applications for mobile phones, Dr Malik said they run on “very good” climate models. However, all weather models have limitations, are region specific and are bases on areas and the time difference.

“Most phones have applications based on the UK climate model which also works for Pakistan. There are hundreds of other models that are used for other regions.

“However, there is no Pakistan specific weather forecast application so far. Such applications require massive investments in super computers. The Met Office is working on a region specific application which should take a year to develop,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2018