Srinagar: The second lowest night temperature in ten years was recorded in Srinagar as the cold wave continued its firm grip across the Valley, the weatherman said on Saturday.
The mercury in the summer capital of the J-K fell to minus 6.6 °C, making it the second-lowest December night since 2010. While mercury on 27 December 2010 settled exactly the same as recorded overnight, it had plummeted to minus 7.7°C on 27 December 2018 and was the lowest in twenty-eight years.
On 7 December 1990, the minimum temperature had settled at minus 8.8 °C in Srinagar, the official said. The lowest ever temperature in December was minus 12.8 which was recorded on the thirteenth of the month in 1934, the official said.
A meteorological department official told GNS that today’s minimum temperature in Srinagar was almost five degrees below the normal for this time of the year.
The temperature also recorded a fall overnight in other parts of the Valley with Gulmarg, the world-famous skiing resort, recorded a low of minus 9.6 °C, two degrees up from the previous two nights.
However, he said, Gulmarg was the second coldest place in Kashmir Valley after Pahalgam, the famous tourist destination of the Valley which recorded a low of minus 9.5 °C against 9.2 on the previous night. Qazigund recorded minus 5.9°C, Kupwara minus 6.0°C and Kokernag minus 6.0°C.
Due to harsh weather conditions, people are facing a lot of problems. The water from taps has frozen in many places, causing a lot of inconvenience to the people who mostly start their activity late in the morning. Some portions of the Dal Lake were also frozen due to the cold wave. The scheduled and unscheduled power cuts have made things worse for the inhabitants.
The weatherman has forecast mainly dry weather over Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh for the next few days, post ‘Chillai-Kalan’, the forty-day period of harshest winter in Kashmir, which begins on 21 December.
While it will end on 31 January, the cold wave, however, continues even after that in Kashmir with a twenty-day-long ‘Chillai-Khurd’ (small cold) and a ten-day-long ‘Chillai-Bachha’ (baby cold). (GNS)
