LAHORE - Fog blanketed plains of the country including Lahore yesterday with experts predicting the prevailing conditions to persist during the next couple of days.
Dense fog delayed arrival and departure of domestic and international flights besides disrupting schedule of trains and hampering vehicular movement on inter and intra city routes including Motorway and National Highway in the morning and late night.
Moderate to dense fog forced closures of portions of the Motorway at midnight, causing difficulties for the motorists who left with no other option except to use alternative routes including National Highway. Thick fog also disturbed vehicular movement on almost entire National Highway.
Fog started falling in the evening and become so dense at midnight that the visibility reduced to zero in open areas. Lack of sunshine, snowfall over the hills and winds helped maintaining the mercury to a low level, making weather chilly during the day and at nighttime.
Harsh weather conditions forced the people to stay indoors wrapped in woolies and blankets to keep their bodies warm. Excessive usage of heaters in the offices and at home led to low gas pressure in various parts of the City. In certain areas, women faced huge difficulties in cooking meals for their families.
Gupis remained the coldest place in the country where mercury dropped 03 degree Celsius below the freezing point. Maximum and minimum temperature in Lahore was recorded 21C and 09C respectively. Relative humidity in the evening was recorded 67 per cent.
According to the experts, western disturbance is likely to enter western parts of the country tonight and grip upper parts on Wednesday and may persist till Friday (morning).
Local meteorological department has forecast mainly cold and dry weather for most parts of the country with fog over the plains including the City during the next couple of days. However, rain with snowfall over the hills is expected at isolated places of upper Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (Malakand, Hazara, Peshawar divisions), Zhob division, upper FATA, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.