PESHAWAR, March 24: Peshawar city and its surrounding areas received heavy rain accompanied by a light shower of hail on Sunday afternoon, dropping the mercury level considerably.

The sky remained clouded for two consecutive days with intermittent drizzle in some parts of the city on Saturday night.

Heralding the advent of spring, the much-delayed rain is expected to benefit the standing wheat and other crops, bidding faring well to vegetables and fruits of the season.

Start of the day was quite sunny and hot, but suddenly huge masses of black clouds appeared in the sky, and a mild hailstorm followed by thundering overtook the Peshawar region after mid-day, forcing the people to put on warm clothes, as the temperature dropped considerably.

Officials at the local Met office, when contacted for information about the rain the city had received and forecast for the next 24 hours as well as temperature, reluctantly told Dawn that they had been directed against giving any information to the print media regarding the weather.

The officer on duty, Mr Arshad, said it had been made compulsory that any newspaper organization, seeking information about the weather, would have to submit a formal application with the Met office director, who would then decide whether the information should be released to the body concerned or not.