By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is heading into a summer of dangerous heat and diminished rains, the country’s national weather service warned Wednesday, painting a picture of a nation caught between two gathering climate threats: the creeping warmth of El Niño in the Pacific and the accelerating melt of its own glaciers in the north.
The Pakistan Meteorological Department issued its seasonal outlook for the June-through-August period, forecasting above-normal temperatures across virtually the entire country and rainfall deficits that are expected to be most severe in the agricultural heartland of Punjab. The forecast, officials said, carries serious consequences for crops, water supplies, public health, and the tens of millions of Pakistanis who live on the margins of the country’s climate exposure.
At the root of the grim prognosis are two interlocking oceanic phenomena. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation has shifted into a positive — or warming — phase and is expected to intensify as the season progresses. Meanwhile, the Indian Ocean Dipole, currently in a neutral state, is forecast to tip positive by July, a combination that historically suppresses monsoon activity over South Asia. Together, meteorologists said, the two systems are likely to produce conditions not unlike a slow-motion squeeze on the country’s already stressed water and agricultural systems.
“Normal to below-normal” rainfall is expected across most of the country during the three-month season, the agency said, with the sharpest deficits projected over the northeastern reaches of Punjab — the province that serves as Pakistan’s breadbasket and home to the bulk of its population. The probability maps released alongside the forecast showed elevated likelihood of below-normal precipitation stretching across Punjab, Sindh, southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and most of Balochistan.
The north offers a partial exception. Gilgit-Baltistan, adjacent areas of northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Kashmir are expected to see near-normal to somewhat above-normal rainfall — a distinction that, the department warned, comes with its own set of hazards. Heavier precipitation at high elevations, combined with warming temperatures, is expected to accelerate snowmelt and heighten the risk of glacial lake outburst floods, known as GLOFs, as well as flash floods and landslides in mountain communities already familiar with their destructive force.
Researchers have noted that climate change has significantly lengthened the period of extreme heat exposure in the region, compounding the dangers of both dry heat in earlier months and humid heat as the pre-monsoon period advances.
The temperature outlook is unambiguous. Above-normal heat is projected for the entire country through the summer months, with the greatest departures concentrated in the northeast — eastern Gilgit-Baltistan, Kashmir, and adjacent areas of northern Punjab. In the south, Sindh, southeastern Balochistan, and the central-to-northeastern belt of Punjab face the highest probability of extreme warmth. Only western Gilgit-Baltistan is expected to trend in the other direction, toward below-normal temperatures.
The practical consequences of that heat, meteorologists warned, will radiate across nearly every sector of Pakistani life. For farmers, reduced rainfall during the Kharif sowing season — the summer planting cycle that produces rice, cotton, sugarcane, and maize — threatens crop development from the ground up. Moisture stress during germination and early growth can devastate yields, while rising irrigation demand will strain a water distribution network already taxed by years of mismanagement and climate-driven variability.
Heatwaves, the department said, are a particular threat across the plains of southern Punjab and Sindh, where sharp temperature gradients can generate strong winds, dust storms, and hailstorms capable of flattening crops, damaging infrastructure, and choking visibility on roads and highways. In parts of Pakistan, indoor temperatures in brick and concrete buildings have already been recorded above 45 degrees Celsius, underscoring the vulnerability of those without access to cooling.
The health implications may prove as serious as the agricultural ones. High temperatures and humidity, driven by intermittent rainfall in the south, are expected to expand the conditions under which dengue and other vector-borne diseases flourish. Mosquito populations tend to surge in the warm, standing water left behind by sporadic downpours — a dynamic that has fueled repeated dengue outbreaks in Pakistani cities over the past decade.
The forecast did offer one narrow note of reassurance. Excess precipitation in upper catchment areas — the mountain watersheds that feed the Indus and its tributaries — is expected to bolster reservoir levels, helping to sustain water availability for irrigation and hydroelectric generation even as the plains below experience reduced rainfall. That buffer, however, is the same mechanism that elevates the risk of flooding downstream when glacial melt and mountain storms exceed what the river system can absorb.
Pakistan is home to more than 7,000 glaciers, which have been melting at rates that have grown by two to three percent in recent years, according to the National Disaster Management Authority. The meteorological department warned Wednesday that elevated summer temperatures in Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir are expected to drive further glacial retreat, raising river levels and increasing the probability of outburst floods in valleys downstream.
The department called for timely monitoring of pest and disease pressure on crops — conditions that tend to accelerate under sustained heat — as well as preparedness measures in flood-prone and low-lying urban areas across all four provinces, where inadequate drainage systems have repeatedly turned moderate rainfall events into civic emergencies.
The forecast arrives as Pakistan continues to grapple with the compounding costs of recent weather disasters. The 2022 floods alone caused damage equivalent to more than nine percent of the country’s gross domestic product, with an estimated 40 million people displaced, including 20 million children. Against that backdrop, the prospect of another season defined by heat extremes and erratic precipitation carries weight far beyond the meteorological.
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