A widespread spell of rain/snow much needed by the agriculture economy began on Friday, which Met Office predicted, would continue till Monday (February 6) breaking the lengthy dry and cold weather in the country. In its weather report, Met Office said that widespread rain/snow occurred over KPK, GB and Kashmir however scattered rain/snow occurred in Punjab and north-east Balochistan on Friday.
It further forecast widespread rain with snowfall over the hills in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Upper Punjab, Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir and isolated rain/snow in northeast Balochistan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Multan divisions on Saturday (today). In a special advisory, the weather forecasting department said that a fresh westerly wave, giving rains over western Iran, was heading towards Pakistan that would grip western parts of the country on Friday for three days.
Under the influence of this weather system scattered rains with snowfall over the hills is expected over Balochistan, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from Friday to Monday. Widespread rain/snow is also expected in Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir from Friday to Monday. This expected weather system is very likely to produce heavy snowfall over the hills of Galliyat and Murree during the coming weekend, it added.
Met Office said a cold wave was expected to grip most parts of the country during the weekend, and very cold weather is likely to prevail in the country during the next week. Met Office gave good news to the farmers that the barani (rain fed) areas of the country are likely to receive good rainfall during the period that would be very useful for the standing crops over two million as there has been 30 percent less than normal winter rains during the past two months. Met Office further informed that 2-3 spells of rain/snowfall are expected during the month of February as the rains would be above normal in the months of February and March.
Met Office recorded chief amount of rainfall during last 12 hours in mm as under: Parachinar 35, Malam Jabba 20, Dir 13, Kalam 11, Pattan 8, Saidu Sharif 6, Chitral, Chirat, Kakul, Gupis & Rawalakot 5, Muzaffarabad, Drosh 4, Kalat and Quetta 3, Islamabad, Zohb and Mangla 2, Murree, Kotli and Okara 1mm. Lowest temperature recorded in Kalam -12°C, Parachinar -9°C, Gupis -8°C, Skardu -7°C.