May loses heat, as hot winds fail to blow

Gusts of extremely hot wind blowing across the plains delayed by two weeks, Met office

ISLAMABAD: The gusts of hot wind or loo that blow across the South Asian planes in May carrying fatal temperatures of up to 50 degree centigrade were delayed by a climate change phenomenon.

“This year May was not as hot as it was supposed to be,” Pakistan Meteorological Department Spokesman Dr Muhammad Hanif said attributing the change to few showers that have cooled down temperatures by one or two degree centigrade.

“And in upcoming Ramazan,” Dr Hanif said, “we are not expecting extreme heat owing to expected light rains.”

According to Met office, loo starts blowing in central and northern Pakistan with the start of May, which is the hottest month of the year in this part of the world. But these gusts of fatal notoriety were late by two weeks.

Dr Hanif termed the climatic timetable variation an unusual change. “An unusual change has been observed in the temperature during the month of May after 1999, as the hot wind and dry wind Loo has started blowing in upper and plain areas of the country this week,” the Met office spokesman stated.

It is expected that the gusts of loo would scorch the country from the third week
of May.

Temperature recorded so far during the month remained two degree below average in upper half of the country including Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Gilgit-Baltistan and AJK. While in Southern Sindh and Balochistan it remained one degree above the average level, he said.

Elaborating the reason of these unusual phenomena of temperature, Dr Hanif said that there is a penetration of cold air in upper parts of the country which would also cause three to four short spells of rain during May.

Loo is a normal phenomenon in May and June, but this year the weather conditions which generate these hot gusts of wind did not develop, he said.

He also informed that in the fasting month of Ramazan, mixed weather was expected due to some spells of rain.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2017.