ISLAMABAD: Despite being the driest and hottest month of the year, the northern part of the country has been receiving intermittent spells of rain in June due to localised phenomenon.

However, this phenomenon will take the form of pre-monsoon in the region, with the first spell likely to start from Monday.

The Met Office said a fresh westerly wave is likely to approach the upper and central parts of the country from Saturday night. However at the same time moisture-laden winds from the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea were also approaching the plains of Punjab.

As a result of collision of winds, dust-thundershower/rain with gusty winds is expected at scattered places in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, south Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan on Sunday.

While light to mid level rainfall is expected in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Kashmir, Gujranwala, Sargodha, Faisalabad, Lahore, Kalat, Makran and Shaheed Benazirabad divisions on Monday.

The Met Office official said it was the start of pre-monsoon rainfall in Pakistan, which has already commenced in southern India. The monsoon rainfall in Pakistan starts from July and finishes in the last week of September, as the season starts to change towards winter from October.

The Met Office has predicted the country is likely to receive normal monsoon rainfall this year.“Most of the global models are indicating weak El-Nino conditions over Pacific Ocean and positive phase of Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD),” the Met Office said, adding that “keeping in view, global and regional atmospheric circulations the monsoon weather outlook for the year is normal to above normal rainfall in upper half of Pakistan due to strong incursion of monsoon currents and their interaction with westerly weather system”.

However, the Met Office has also cautioned over extreme weather event during this period that may cause flooding in the rivers and adjoining tributaries.

Published in Dawn, June 23rd, 2019