January witnessed below average rainfall

LAHORE : The first month of the year 2023 witnessed -21 per cent below average rainfall while the national mean monthly temperature of January 2023 for Pakistan as a whole was 9.98°C, being 1.25°C cooler than average of 11.24°C.

Data collected from Met office revealed that the wettest day of the month in the country was 30th January when Mandi Bahauddin (Punjab) recorded 65.0 mm rainfall, whereas Malam Jabba was the wettest place with monthly total rainfall of 191.0 mm. The national mean monthly temperature of January 2023 for Pakistan as a whole was 9.98°C, being 1.25°C cooler than average of 11.24°C. Daytime (maximum) temperature at country-level was 17.11°C, being 1.23°C Cooler than the country-average of 18.34°C.

The Met office data further revealed that the nighttime (minimum) temperature was 2.94°C, being 0.75°C Cooler than the country-average of 3.69°C. The hottest day of the month was witnessed at Shaheed Benazirabad (Sindh) where mercury reached to 31.5°C on 11th January 2023 while Mithi (Sindh) has been the warmest place with 26.6°C mean monthly maximum temperature. The data also showed that the coldest temperature (-16.5°C) of the month was recorded at Kalam (KP) on 17th & 26th January 2023, which incidentally, has also been the coolest place with -8.7°C mean monthly minimum temperature. January 2023 brought three light to moderate rain spells in Punjab, Balochistan, KP and GB/AJK, whereas only one very light rain spell was observed in Sindh.

Climatologically, January was a less-average rainy month contributing 25.5pc and 6.4pc to the Winter and annual rainfall respectively. However, with -21pc deviation, the January 2023 happened to be a below-average rainy month for Pakistan with only 14.9 mm area-weighted rain against 18.9 mm average rainfall in the month. The situation was more or less similar on a regional scale i.e. Balochistan (10.9mm/-39pc), Punjab (9.6mm/-38pc), GB (13.8mm/-12pc) and Sindh with (0.4mm/-85pc) all witnessed below- to largely below-average rainfall. Whereas AJK with (70.6mm/+11%) and KP (47.7mm/+11%) both witnessed slightly above average rainfall during the month.

The other significant monthly-total rains were at Garhi Dupatta 131.8mm, Muzaffarabad Airport 129.2mm, Muzaffarabad City 108.9mm, Dir (Upper) 158.5mm, Dir (Lower) 101.0mm, Kalam 148.0mm, Pattan 152.0mm, Saidu Sharif 103.8mm.

The cities included Kot Addu, Hunza, Badin, Chhor, Hyderabad, Karachi, Mithi, Shaheed Benzirabad, Padidan, Thatta, Dadu, Mirpur Khas and Sakrand remained dry with no rain during the month while D. G. Khan, Layyah, D. I. Khan, Larkana, Moen-Jo-Daro, TandoJam, Lasbela and Sibbi, reported only traces of rainfall. Met office data showed that January 2023 was -1.25°C cooler than average with national mean monthly temperature of 9.98°C against the average 11.24°C. Similarly on regional scale, Balochistan with 9.59°C (-1.98°C), KP 7.37°C (-0.63°C), Sindh 15.31°C (-0.85°C), AJK 4.50°C (-0.31°C), Punjab 11.49°C (-1.15°C) all recorded cooler than average temperatures, except GB with 0.94°C (+0.10°C) being the only region having warmer than average temperature. Met office predicted that cold and dry weather was expected in most parts while cloudy/cold in upper and central parts of the country during the next 24 hours while rain-thunderstorm/snow was expected in upper Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit Baltistan, Kashmir and adjoining hilly areas.

Saturday’s lowest minimum temperature was recorded at Leh where mercury dropped down to -08°C while in Lahore it was 9.4°C and maximum was 25.8°C.