Balochistan’s city of Ziarat and surrounding areas received up to 3 inches of snow on March 23, which is very unusual as the temperature is normally hot at the end of March.

“Heavy snowfall in Ziarat in the month of March after 15 years,” a private weather station said in a tweet. The temperature dropped to 5°.

An independent analyst Owais Hyder has warned of flash floods in western KP and different parts of northern Punjab due to intense rain and hail storms.

Several areas of Punjab received heavy rainfall and hail on Thursday night. Rain and hailstorms are expected in several areas in central and northern Punjab, including Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Sialkot, Multan, and Gujranwala in the next 24 to 48 hours, according to Pak Weather.

Temperatures across the country dropped as several areas across the country received rain and hailstorms when a strong system of westerly winds entered the country in mid-March.

Earlier predictions

Earlier this month, the Meteorological department predicted that a western wind will likely enter Pakistan from Balochistan and the upper parts of the country on March 14 and will prevail till March 20.

Independent weather analyst Jawad Memon said that the system of winds was forecast to enter Pakistan on March 12 and will primarily bring heavy rainfall to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

Under the influence of these systems, Memon says temperatures in Sindh will continuously rise from March 12 to March 17. Then, the beginning of April will bring two more wind systems with it, leading to heavy rain across Pakistan.

In the rest of the country, the back-to-back wind systems will bring danger for wheat crops which are set to be harvested in the months of March and April. If the rains turn to hailstorms, harvests could seriously be affected.