Highlights

A heatwave is also around the corner

Kiran, a mother of three, was seeing her children off for school this morning when she noticed low visibility in the street. Is it fog? But she also felt a bizarre smell — one that would irritate you.

The Met Office has reported that a fog formed in the suburbs on Wednesday morning. While it was not too dense, it did affect the visibility, according to the Met.

The meteorological office would not call it “fog” but the air quality index (AQI) of the city confirmed that pollution levels had gone up.

IQAir, which monitors Karachi’s air quality using at least four stations in the city, reported the Korangi Sector 15 station recorded AQI at 275 — very unhealthy. The number comes closer to AQI 270 recorded at some of the stations in Lahore on Wednesday, including the one in DHA.

Lahore, however, registered a much higher AQI of 387 at some other stations.

Rising air pollution

In Karachi, three other AQI stations reported an index of around 185 in the morning. The readings go up during the day when more vehicles take to the road and businesses open.

If morning air is cold and clean you may experience fog but not the irritation that is the hallmark of smog — smog is a portmanteau from smoke and fog.

The fog – or smog, if you want to categorize it so — on Wednesday morning was caused by a colder morning. The temperature dropped to 16 degrees Celsius last night and the peak temperature forecast for the day is 26 degrees. So, it is a colder day. A fog was bound to form, but not smog. That is our own doing.

For mothers like Kiran smog is a dreadful thought. They have seen children in Lahore suffer.

Smog will cause worries not only among the people in Karachi but also in Badin, Hyderabad and other Sindh cities along the River Indus.

A map by IQAir, shows ‘unhealthy’ air engulfing Karachi, Hyderabad, Badin, Larkana and other cities. The country’s main highways and rail tracks pass through these cities.

Heatwave

Karachi and the rest of Sindh will be hit by a heatwave later this month. So, there will be no risk of smog in the next few weeks. The problem may return, though, whenever temperatures drop unless we improve the air quality.

for now, the heatwave is coming to our aid and, at the same time, becomes another irritant.

Weather analyst Rana Jawad Memon says temperatures may rise beginning February 16 and hit a peak by February 21.

The Seabreeze will stop and hot air from Balochistan will gush toward Karachi, pushing up the maximum temperature to 38 degrees Celsius.

Karachi experienced a longer-than-usual winter period this year. Jawad says the city will now swelter through an extended summer.