LAHORE: The country may start Kharif season (beginning March 1) with a historic carry-over of around four million acre feet (MAF) of water as changing weather patterns have brought short spans of extreme cold and high temperatures, improving hydrological conditions.

Over the past one month, hilly areas have witnessed heavy snowfalls, followed by high mercury which melted the snow quickly, improving river flow and increasing reservoirs` levels.

On Friday, the country held a record 5.7 MAF of water in both of its reservoirs, and the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) was supplying water to provinces according to their demand.

The improved health of reservoirs could be gauged from the difference between their planned level and actual position.

According to the Irsa planning, the Tarbela Lake should have been at a level of 1,409 feet on Feb 12, whereas its actual level was1,489, or 80 feet above the planned level.

Last year, the lalce was at 1,468 feet. The lake holds 3.16 MAF of water.

Similarly, the Mangla Lake had attained 1,165 feet against the planned 1,090 an improvement of 75 feet. On the same day last year, the lake level was 1,150 feet. The reservoir is holding 2.59MAF of water and Irsa has increased releases to around 60,000 cusecs as Punjab is running all its perennial and non-perennial canals according to the demand.

`The hydrological conditions this year have improved vastly, and from the beginning of the season,` said an official of the Punjab Irrigation Department. In the start of the current Rabi season, Irsa had feared some 14 per cent shortages in October last year. They were revised down to 8pc in November. By January (after the canal closure), they came down to nil and Irsa started releasing water to provinces as per their demand from the start of February.

Now, with water supply still much better than expected, the water watchers are hoping that both reservoirs would continue toimprove during February because of the current spell of heavy snowfall in catchment areas. On the basis of these calculations, the country might be starting next irrigation season (Kharif) with around 4MAF of water, against traditional storages of half a million acre feet to one million acre feet, he hoped.

`Apart from the current temporary relief, the erratic weather pattern should also be a concern for policymakers,` cautioned another official.

In the last two months, he said, weather changed in more ways than one there was almost no cold during December and the first half of January before the extreme winter set in. Within next two weeks, cold gave way to high temperature before one week of heavy snowfall began in areas like Mansehra and Margalla hills, which traditionally hardly received any snow. Met officials are now predicting rise in temperature next week. `This pattern will only add uncertainties to supplies. To meet such a situation, country needs to have more reservoirs,` he said.