Pakistan’s climate is continental as a whole, but the high mountains to the north give its climate a peculiar shape.
The high Himalayan mountain ranges in northern Pakistan influence Pakistan’s climate in several ways.
Soft winters
Probably the most pronounced effect of the great northern mountain ranges on the climate of Pakistani cities is that Pakistani cities are spared from the intense cold of Central Asia during the winter season. To cite a typical example, Multan and Shanghai are located almost on the same parallel but there is a big temperature difference between their winter temperatures. Multan records a winter temperature of 54 F, while in Shanghai it is 38 F. This is because the very high mountains in the north do not allow cold air to penetrate into Pakistan. While in the case of Shanghai, there is no mountain barrier to protect it from the cold and fierce Siberian wind from the north.
Similarly, Tashkent in Uzbekistan, located on the other side of the mountains, faces the full fury of Central Asian wind temperatures with temperatures dipping as low as 30 F in winter, while in Islamabad winter temperatures hover around 50 F. , thanks to the protective shield of the Himalayas. To the north.
monsoon rains
The other most important influence of the high mountains is the direction and containment of the monsoon winds. If there had been no mountains in the north, there would have been no monsoons. Monsoons from the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean are blocked by the high mountains to the north and are forced to rise, thus reaching condensation temperature and giving rise to heavy rains.
Other neighboring countries located almost at the same latitude do not have rainy season like monsoon. Afghanistan and Iran are the examples. In these countries the summer heat continues to increase until the end of July and in some cases until August and then gradually decreases in the following months. While, on the other hand, due to the influence of the very high mountains in the north of Pakistan, the monsoon winds can lower the temperature considerably in late June and the following months of July, August and September are much cooler than if there had been no monsoon.
In short, the Himalayan mountains in northern Pakistan influence and alter the country’s climate to a considerable degree.