ISLAMABAD: The westerly wave brought more than 40mm rainfall to Islamabad on Saturday, the Met Office said.

The westerly wave, still present in upper parts of the country, was on the move towards the east and northeast and the sky over Islamabad will be clear by Sunday morning More rain/thunderstorm with snow over the hills is expected at isolated places in Gilgit-Baltistan, Kashmir and the adjoining hilly areas on Sunday.

The plains of south Punjab and upper Sindh will continue facing foggy conditions, especially during morning hours.

The first rain of the year, however, brought an unusual weather pattern as both minimum and maximum temperature on Saturday were almost the same at 9°C.

Contrary to the previous days when the mercury was hovering around 19°C during daytime to -1°C at night, on Saturday there was a negligible gap between the two ranges.

The maximum temperature in the wee hours on Saturday was 9.5°C while the minimum was 9°C.

The minimum temperature in Islamabad on Friday was 3°C, which rose by 6°C as thick clouds hovering at low altitude covered the sky the whole day.

Though rains and snowfall in Malamjabba continued on Saturday night with intervals, by late evening it received 53mm rainfall and snowfall was 2.4 feet.

Murree and Kalam received 8.5 inches of snowfall and it was 6.5 inches in Skardu and one inch each in Gilgit and Dir.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2019