City receives first pre-monsoon downpour

LAHORE:First pre-monsoon rain hit the provincial capital relieving the citizens from the wrath of the rising mercury here on Thursday while Met office predicted more rains during the next 24 hours.

On Thursday morning, thick black clouds surrounded the city skies and the rain broke the heat spell. The rain made the weather pleasant as after the rain, the intensity of heat has decreased to a great extent.

Data collected from Wasa revealed that rainfall was observed at Lahore Airport (33 mm), Gulberg (15 mm), Upper Mall (14 mm), Nishtar Town (11 mm), Lakshmi Chowk and Johar Town (07 mm each), Jail Road (06 mm), Tajpura (04 mm), Iqbal Town and Qurtaba Chowk (03 mm each), Chowk Nakhuda, Farrukhabad and Mughalpura (02 mm each) and Samanabad and Gulshan-e-Ravi (01 mm each).

After the rain in the city, Wasa Managing Director Ghafran Ahmed, DC Lahore Rafia Haider and other senior officers issued alerts to all the institutions concerned. Wasa MD directed his field teams to keep the machinery active and ready while DC Lahore asked the LWMC management to ensure sanitation arrangements after rain.

She said rainwater should be cleared from roads, low-lying areas and underpasses. Vice Chairman Wasa Ch Shehbaz Ahmed also issued instructions in view of rain at various places in the provincial.

Ghafran Ahmed also made surprise visits during the rain and directed all the staff to be fully alert, all the generators to be put on standby and active and the screens of all the disposal stations should be completely clean.

Met officials said moist currents from Arabian sea were penetrating central/upper parts of the country while a shallow westerly wave was also affecting central/upper parts of the country. They predicted that on Friday windstorm, thunderstorm and rain were expected at isolated places in northeast Balochistan, Punjab, Islamabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan while hailstorm and heavy falls were also likely in northeast Balochistan, central/upper Punjab and south Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the period. They said hot and dry weather was likely in other parts of the country.

Thursday’s highest maximum temperature was recorded at Gwadar, Sibbi and Turbat where mercury reached 48°C while in Lahore it was 38°C and minimum was 26°C.