Pakistan in the grip of dry spell, says Met office

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has been in the grip of the dry spell including twin cities of Rawalpindi, Islamabad and the surrounding region, the met office said.

The total rainfall in twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad during October had been less than 1mm whereas the average normal rainfall in the region in this month remains 31.7mm.

Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) had predicted 10pc rain across the country in October with two or three spells of light to moderate rains.

But the weather pattern remained unpredictable and there was no sign of downpour in the remaining days of the month in the region.

According to weather pundits, the situation was not different in Murree either where the total rainfall up to Oct 26 had been more than 80pc below normal rain, with only 13mm rainfall against the normal pattern of 63.1mm.

The rainfall had been below normal in the previous month too, leading to water shortage in many parts of the country.

The Met Office has already issued a warning of the drought-like condition.

Some cities including Bahawalnagar, Mianwali, Sargodha, Dir, Garhi Dupatta, Chitral, Kohat, Karachi and Sibbi received higher than normal precipitation in October.

In an effort to mitigate the impact of climate change, the National Highways Authority (NHA) has responded to the efforts of the government for plantation of trees.

A forestation programme has been finalised to plant trees along more than 1,200 kilometres of motorways and highways network under the jurisdiction of NHA.

The programme was inaugurated by Minister of State for Communications Murad Saeed on Friday.

According to the Met office forecast during July-August 2018, below normal rainfall was recorded over most of the southern parts of the country. The summer months of May and June 2018 received (7%) above normal rainfall whereas during monsoon months of July and August, it was 30.4% below normal.

During May to August this year minus 24.4% then normal rainfall was recorded across Pakistan, the PMD said.