LAHORE: The monsoon system from the Bay of Bengal began on Friday to give rain in many cities in the country in league with a westerly wave over the upper parts of the country, and the Met office said it was to unleash its fury mainly in Sindh and Balochistan in the next two days.

The Met department reiterated that the system might generate a very heavy to extremely heavy rain that might cause urban flooding in Sindh and hill torrents in Balochistan.

Extremely strong monsoon current was reaching lower portions of the country up to 10,000ft.

Luckily, it was not moving towards upper parts of the country otherwise this amount of moisture could give devastating rains over the cool upper catchments of the major rivers, generating extremely high floods in them, a meteorologist said.

Rain on Friday was generated by the monsoon current from the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal and a westerly wave over the upper parts of the country.

It rained heavily in the central, western and southern Lahore, submerging roads and causing widespread traffic jams. Broken down motorcycles and cars dotted the inundated roads.

The Flood Forecasting Bureau said the depression over northeast Chhattisgarh moved westwards and lay over central Madhya Pradesh (India). It was likely to weaken into a well marked low. A westerly wave also persisted over the upper parts of the country.

Due to this, scattered thunderstorm/rain with heavy falls at isolated places is expected over the upper catchments of all the major rivers in the next 72 hours.

Scattered to wide-spread thunderstorm/rain of heavy to very heavy intensity with one or two extremely heavy falls is expected over Karachi, Hyderabad and Mirpur Khas divisions, which may also cause severe urban flooding.

Scattered to wide spread thunderstorm/rain with heavy falls at isolated places and very heavy falls at one or two places is expected over Sukkur, Larkana, Shaheed Benazirabad, Zhob, Kalat, Sibbi, Naseerabad and Makran divisions.

Medium to high level flows are also expected in the hill torrents of Dera Ghazi Khan division and nullahs of Balochistan.

Meanwhile, the Met department said that Islamabad (Saidpur) recorded 66mm of rain , Sialkot (airport 53, city 42), Jhelum 45, Narowal 45, Noorpur Thal 32, Gujrat 28, Hafizabad 24, Lahore (city 21), Khanewal 21, Bahawalpur (airport 16, city 12), Khanpur 11, Faisalabad 7, Kaloi 20, Diplo 17, Thatta 11, Chhor 7, Badin 5, Chachro 4, Mithi 3, Mirpurkhas 2, Karachi 2, Bannu 27, Malamjabba 18, Balakot 13, Parachinar 12, Barkhan 19, Khuzdar 4, Garidupatta 15, Rawalakot 11, Muzaffarabad 9, Astore 1.

It forecast widespread rains/wind-thunderstorm in Mirpurkhas, Thatta, Hyderabad, Karachi, Shaheed Benazirabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Lahore, Sargodha Faisalabad divisions, Islamabad, Kashmir during Friday night and on Saturday.

Scattered rain is also expected in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Multan, D GKhan divisions, Gilgit Baltistan and isolated in Sahiwal, Bahawalpur, Sukkur, Larkana, Makran, Quetta, Zhob, Kalat, Sibbi, Naseerabad divisions.

Isolated heavy falls are also expected in Lower Sindh (Mirpurkhas, Thatta, Hyderabad, Karachi, Shaheed Benazirabad divisions), Kalat, Zhob, Sibbi, Naseerabad, Hazara, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Lahore, Faisalabad divisions, Islamabad and Kashmir.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2019