Dust cloud envelops Karachi, visibility reduced to 50 metres

A dust storm on Saturday evening reduced the visibility to almost 50 metre whereas the wind speed was recorded up to 36 nautical miles.
According to the met office, due to the dust storm, the air traffic schedule was badly affected and flights were delayed for few hours. On the other hand, the rescue service providers said that two persons received injures when the roof of the waiting room of the Civil Hospital Karachi collapsed due to the strong winds.
Due to dust-thunderstorm, motorists switched on their vehicles’ headlights well before sunset while facing serious problems in seeing other objects on streets. The dusty weather also created problems for the passers-by, push-cart vendors, open-area restaurants, shopkeepers. The passers-by and motorcyclists used handkerchiefs to cover their faces to avoid the dusty winds.
Chief Meteorologist Touseef said that the visibility would improve as soon as wind speed start decreasing and hopefully, situation would get better in next several hours. This is a normal phenomenon and dust thunderstorm do occurs in the month of May-June, he further said. “When the warm air moves upwards, it creates a vacuum and to fill that empty space, air from surrounding areas gushed in,” he told Pakistan Today.
As the wind is coming from west-northwest direction, which is a plane area, it carries dust particles with it and that is why metropolis received dust-thunderstorm, he added. When the wind comes from sea-side then we do not have dust-thunderstorm, he said.
According met department report, a fresh westerly disturbance is affecting northern Karachi and same situation was reported in several districts of Sindh for last 48 days.
The Meteorological Department has forecast hot and dry weather in Karachi for Sunday (today) with maximum temperature ranging between 34 to 36 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, hot to very hot and dry weather with gusty winds has been forecast at few districts of Sindh.
The minimum temperature was 27.5 degrees Celsius whereas maximum temperature was 34 degrees Celsius with 63 per cent humidity. The highest maximum temperature of 44.7 degree centigrade was reordered at Dadu while lowest minimum of 13 at Kalat on Saturday.