Incessant fog, snowfall over the hills and continuously blowing winds increased intensity of cold wave by further decreasing the mercury level across the country including the City on Sunday with experts predicting the harsh weather conditions to persist during the next 2-3 days.

The City has so far witnessed just half an hour of sunshine during the last over one week that has gradually decreased the daytime temperature, increasing winter woes with frequent outages and low gas pressure adding to their miseries of Lahorites. Incessant fog and the resultant lack of sunshine has caused outbreak of winter related diseases especially among kids and school going children. There is hardly any household in Lahore where all individual are healthy despite extreme cold and without warmth of sunshine and gas heaters.

On Sunday, maximum and minimum temperature in the City was recorded 9 degree Celsius and 1.4 C respectively. Relative humidity in the morning was recorded was 83 per cent which increased to 86 per cent in the evening. Severe cold forced the people to stay indoors to avoid harsh weather conditions on a holiday. Considerable increase in the usage of heaters led to low gas pressure throughout the City. Gas pressure was so low that the women faced huge difficulties in cooking meals.

Besides severe cold, dense fog blanketed the plains including the City throughout the day, bringing the life to a standstill as low visibility disrupted schedule of flights and trains besides hampering vehicular movement on inter and intra city routes including Motorway and National Highway.

In Lahore, fog started falling in the wee hours and continued till the noon. Before the lifting of existing mass, the fog started falling again, depriving Lahorites from warmth of sunshine throughout the day. Fog became so dense at midnight that the visibility reduced to zero in open areas.

Incessant fog caused delay in arrival and departure of international and domestic flights during the morning while low visibility also disturbed rail traffic and almost all trains reached to their respective destinations hours behind the scheduled time. Low visibility hampered vehicular movement on major intercity roads. Dense fog forced closures of Motorway from Lahore to Islamabad and from Pindi Bhattian to Faisalabad, causing difficulties for the motorists who left with no other option except to use alternative routes including National Highway. Dense fog also disturbed vehicular movement on almost entire National Highway.  According to the experts, a trough of westerly wave persists over Kashmir.

Local meteorological department has forecast mainly cold and dry weather for most parts of the country with fog in the morning and at night for the plains including the City during the next 2-3 days. However, light rain with snowfall over the hills is expected at isolated places of Gilgit-Baltistan.