Karachi braces for thunderstorm after an unusually warm night

Karachi is bracing for a thunderstorm on Thursday after experiencing unusually high temperatures and hot winds overnight

Karachi braces for thunderstorm after an unusually warm night

By Zamzam

Karachi is bracing for a thunderstorm on Thursday after experiencing unusually high temperatures and hot winds overnight. 

There is a fear of urban flooding in the city.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department has forecast torrential rains from Thursday, September 30 to Sunday, October 3. It has also warned that heavy downpours may cause urban flooding in Karachi, Hyderabad, Thatta and other cities.

The alert has caused concerns among Karachi citizens who have barely recovered from the recent spells of rains that resulted in flooding in some parts of the city, especially in North Karachi and New Karachi.

Will schools open today?

The chances of precipitation will increase by 10am and thunderstorm is expected by late afternoon, data on weather apps indicates.

Sindh Board of Technical Education has cancelled the examination scheduled for Thursday.

However, most of the schools have not announced if they would open or not, causing confusion among school children and parents, SAMAA’s Zamzam Saeed reported.

There was no announcement from the universities and colleges either.

How Karachi rain is linked to Cyclone Gulab

The rains forecast for Sindh and Balochistan has been linked to the Cyclone Gulab in the Bay of Bengal.

While there is a 2300km distance between the Bay of Bengal and Karachi, the cyclone has been influencing weather in Pakistan’s commercial hub and other cities.

The Met Department says a low-pressure area, which is “a remnant of the Cyclonic Storm Gulab,” was moving in the northwest direction towards Pakistan from the Indian state of Gujrat.

The core Cyclone Gulab has already made landfall in the Andhra Pradesh state of India, but “in a rare phenomenon, the weather system is predicted to reintensify once it hits the Arabian Sea and turns into Cyclone Shaheen,” India Today reported on Wednesday

India Meteorological Department has also forecast rains in several Gujrat cities and has issued a ‘red alert.’

#CycloneGulab trended on Twitter in Pakistan on Wednesday night.

Authorities take emergency measures

The Met Department alert from Tuesday has warned that “the windstorm may cause damages to vulnerable structures.”

Authorities in Karachi have been preparing to deal with the situation.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has issued an alert for the Jinnah International Airport. The CAA has directed concerned officials to address the potential emergency.

Karachi Administrator Murtaza Wahab chaired a meeting of various department heads and instructed officials to use all available resources to protect people from various hazards during the rains.

Murtaza later tweeted that Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah had instructed provincial ministers to deal with the rain-related situation in seven districts of Karachi.

The Provincial Disaster Management Authority Sindh has also issued an alert.

Unusually warm night

Karachi experienced unusually high night temperatures overnight as hot winds blew, causing discomfort to people who had stepped out to escape the heat after a sizzling day.

The temperature was recorded 32 degrees Celsius at 12am and the wind speed 10 knots (18.52km/h), SAMAA’s Khurshid Alam reported.

The temperature dropped a little by early morning.

It was, however, not the hottest night in September. At the beginning of the month, a minimum night temperature of 30.5 degrees Celsius was recorded.

Originally published at Samaa tv