Widespread rains break 50 years record in KP

ISLAMABAD: The widespread rains continued in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa during the last 24 hours have broken the record of last 50 years in the province.

The current monsoon rain spell is likely to continue in most parts of the country till Friday afternoon including twin cities Sargodha, Mianwali, Chakwal and most parts of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, said Chief Meteorologist, Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), Ghulam Rasool Thursday.

He said that above normal rains have been recorded across the country during July.

The Chief Met informed that intermittent rains starting from July 26 has filled Simly and Khanpur dams besides improving water level in Rawal dam which will help overcome water shortage.

However, the people living in low lying areas in Rawalpindi may get affected due to urban flooding which is caused by improper sanitation system.

About agriculture, Ghulam Rasool said the widespread rains will cast negative impact on cotton, chilli and tomato crops.

The cotton diseases can harm the crop while excessive water in chilli and tomato fields will damage them as both are very sensitive crops.

However, rice and sugarcane crop may survive if the rain water didnot stay long in the fields.

Earlier this rainspell, the met office issued agriculture advisory for the farmers of Sukkur and Khairpur districts of Sindh to protect date crop.

While, he said sometimes farmers do not follow the advisory and have to bear big losses.

Ghulam Rasool said that the rapid climate change is being observed across the globe and it is a very difficult task to give seasonal forecast and precise prediction about weather.

“There is need to follow innovations in climate change science as all the weather experts across the world are facing challenges to give accurate seasonal prediction,” he said.

He said that extreme weather changes are being observed in the country as heat wave conditions prevailing in the months of March broke all the records and now the monsoon rains has caused floods in different parts of the country affecting people and agriculture sector.

Giving details, he said that the El-nino phenomenon has been suppressed and now the weather system in neutral. However, La-nina phenomenon” development is not observed in the Pacific Ocean.

The rainfall in twin cities during 26-29 July,was recorded as 64 mm in Islamabad and 159 mm in Rawalpindi.