Winter ends on wet note in J&K; weather to improve from today
SRINAGAR: Winter ended on a wet note as rains lashed many parts of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday.
Though February was relatively dry as compared to December and January, moderate rains which started on Friday intensified on Saturday.
As per the weatherman, low to moderate rainfall was being recorded in many parts of Jammu and Kashmir since Saturday morning.
“Between 8.30am and 2.30pm, Bhaderwah received 17.8mm rainfall, followed by Banihal which recorded 16.22mm rainfall, Batote 14mm and Katra 9.6mm,” said an official of meteorological (MET) department.
He said summer capital Srinagar recorded 2.4mm rainfall, while Jammu received 3.7mm rainfall. The northern district of Kupwara received 2.6mm rainfall, he added.
“The weather is going to improve Sunday onwards, but may again deteriorate after three days,” the MET department official said.
TRAFFIC MOVEMENT ON JAMMU-SRINAGAR HIGHWAY DISRUPTED
A traffic official said the traffic movement on Jammu-srinagar highway was disrupted due to rain, fresh snowfall and shooting stones.
Light snowfall occurred at Jawahar Tunnel, the gateway to Kashmir, while rains triggered shooting of stones from the hillocks at several places between Panthiyal and Ramsoo along the 270-km highway, forcing suspension of the traffic for few hours, traffic department officials said.
However, the traffic movement was restored by 4pm.
“The traffic on Jammu -Srinagar national highway remained disrupted for about three hours on Saturday due to landslides at Hingni in Ramsu area of Ramban district” said a police official.
The landslide had occurred around 1.30pm, but was cleared around 4pm, he added.
“The temperatures which used to be up early this week came down due to the precipitation,” the MET official said.
Gulmarg witnessed -1.6°C on Friday night while it was 4.5°C in Srinagar,” he added.
Normally, Kashmir’s winter pans out in three stages starting with 40-day intense period from December 21(locally called Chillai Kalan) followed by 20 more days which are less intense (Chillai Khurd) and then in last, 10 days of mild cold (Chillai Bache).