KARACHI: A smog-like situation prevailed in the metropolis on Wednesday morning which a senior Met official described as “misty and hazy” weather.

Pakistan Meteorological Department Director Abdul Rasheed said that the situation would prevail for the next few days.

He said that misty and hazy weather emerged when minimum temperature fell rapidly. He said these conditions usually emerged with sunrise and started fading out after a few hours.

Clarifying that it was not the smog which had recently hit Punjab, he made it clear that it was not an unusual change as every year the weather turned like this before the arrival of winter.

Weatherman Shahid Abbas said that the sea breeze stopped blowing because the land and sea temperature was at the same level.

Mr Abbas, the regional Meteorological centre Karachi director, said: “The same weather condition will persist for the next two or three days in the city until winds from Quetta start blowing here. Then the haze will dissipate and it will get two to three degrees colder.”

Due to foggy conditions, a Met office advisory said, the visibility dropped to 1,500 meters in areas close to the Jinnah International Airport.

It said that the minimum temperature in the city was 22 degrees centigrade and the humidity, or the amount of moisture in the air, between 84 and 85 per cent.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2018