ISLAMABAD: With no more rainfall in sight, the temperature is likely to rise gradually across the country, including the twin cities of Rawalpindi Islamabad, during the remaining days of the month.

The mercury almost touched 40 degrees Celsius on Friday, giving the sizzling effect after two days of a pleasant break because of the presence of clouds.

The Met Office has predicted that the weather would be mainly hot and dry in most parts of the country but central and southern Punjab, eastern Balochistan and Sindh would be very hot.

The situation is likely to create small low-intensity whirl winds in the plain areas but the cool winds from the west would create dust-thunderstorm and rain at isolated places in Malakand, Hazara divisions, Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir.

The region around Islamabad is less likely to benefit from the incoming cool winds and the temperature is predicted to remain around 39 degrees on Saturday and 40 degrees on Sunday.

“June is the hottest and the driest month in South Asia and any significant rain spell is not expected in the month,” said an official of the Met Office, adding: “The hot and dry conditions make way for the monsoon rains which is the main source of fresh water in the whole region.”

Due to high heat, cyclone-like systems have already started developing in South Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal.

The conditions indicate arrival of pre-monsoon rainfall in Southern and Eastern parts of India.

The highest temperature in THE country on Friday was 48 degrees in Jacobabad and Mithi followed by 47 degrees in several parts of Sindh including Dadu, Moenjodaro, Sukkur, Rohri and Sibbi and Turbat in Balochistan.

Meanwhile, the Met Office has warned the citizens against unauthentic weather predictions.

It said: “This has been observed that information/news/alerts/warnings regarding weather are shared on social media claiming to be associated with Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD). Such unauthentic weather information has nothing to do with PMD.”

The Met Office said the weather information/news/alerts/warnings issued by PMD were disseminated through print and electronic media. It advised the citizens to visit the PMD website to get authentic weather information and abstain from spreading baseless and fabricated weather information.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2019