KARACHI: With 181% above average rainfall, July 2022 happened to be an excessive-rain month with 177.6mm of rain against its normal of 63.1mm making it the wettest July since 1961, said the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) on Wednesday.
In its monthly climate summary, the PMD said that July’s monthly rainfall alone exceeded the total normal monsoon seasonal rainfall by 26%.
Balochistan received over 450%, Sindh over 308%, Punjab over 116%, Gilgit-Baltistan over 32% and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa received over 30% more downpours than average rainfall in the month.
The Met Office said that the torrential rain caused massive flash floods in Balochistan, Sindh and southwest Punjab, inflicting huge loss of human lives and properties.
Wettest/hottest days of July
The wettest day of the month in the country was 25th July, when Badin (Sindh) recorded 219.0mm rainfall, whereas the wettest place with highest monthly total of 606 mm at PAF Masroor, Karachi.
The PMD said that the national mean monthly temperature of July 2022 for Pakistan as a whole was 29.93 °C, being 1.34°C cooler than monthly-average of 31.27 °C.
Daytime maximum temperature at the country-level was 35.07 °C, being 2.15 °C cooler than average of 37.23 °C. it added
“The nighttime (minimum) temperature was 24.83 °C, being 0.47 °C cooler than country-average of 25.30 °C,” read the statement.
The hottest day of the month was at Nokkundi (Balochistan) when it recorded 48.0 °C temperature on 2nd July 2022.
Coldest temperature of 10.0 °C of the month was recorded at Kalam (KP) on July 16 and 17th. The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) remained mostly negative during the month.
The La Niña conditions have been persisting through almost 3rd year, one of the rare phenomena being described as Triple-dip La Niña and is likely to prevail through this summer, said the Met Office.
In addition to this, the Monsoon season set on in northern parts of the country on June 30, a day earlier than its normal date. During July 2022, three widespread rainy spells were experienced. Climatologically the July considered to be most wet month of the year.
On average, the July rainfall contribution is of the order of 45% and 21% to the Monsoon and annual rainfall respectively.
