Rain lash Kashmir, snowfall in Gulmarg
The Gulmarg meadow, famous for its ski trials, pine forests and mountain peaks near the Line of Control (LoC) in north Kashmir, some 50 km from summer capital Srinagar, was covered with a blanket of snow during Thursday
Higher reaches in Kashmir received fresh snowfall on Friday. The tourist resort of Gulmarg and other mountainous areas were covered with overnight snowfall and widespread rains lashed the plains.
The Gulmarg meadow, famous for its ski trials, pine forests and mountain peaks near the Line of Control (LoC) in north Kashmir, some 50 km from summer capital Srinagar, was covered with a blanket of snow during Thursday night, taking minimum temperature below zero after fresh precipitation started on Wednesday afternoon and continued intermittently on Thursday and Friday.
“There was 8.8 cm (around 4 inches) of snowfall in Gulmarg, while most other weather stations received rainfall,” an official of J&K meteorological department (MeT) said.
The Pir Panjal mountain range, including Mughal road which connects Valley Shopian district with Jammu’s Rajouri and Poonch — also received fresh snowfall.
The plains received widespread rain with summer capital Srinagar recording 18.6 mm of rain in the past 24 hours till Friday morning, followed by 15.3 mm in Kupwara in north Kashmir.
The snowfall and rain has brought down day as well as night temperatures across the Himalayan valley. While day temperatures are running five to eight degrees below normal, there was a drop of three to five degrees in night temperatures in the valley.
The MeT update, in the morning, said the mercury dropped to 5.7 degree Celsius (normal is 13.6) in Gulmarg in north Kashmir on Thursday, the night temperature was recorded at -1.0 degree on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday.
The summer capital Srinagar witnessed 17.2 degree Celsius (normal is 22.8 degree) on Thursday and 6.5 degree during the night.
The south Kashmir’s Pahalgam resort reported 12.6 degree Celsius day temperature (normal is 19.8 degrees) and 4.2 degree night temperature.
Director of J&K MeT Sonam Lotus said they expected improvement in weather on Friday afternoon with fresh rain from Saturday.
“From April 29 to May 2, the weather will remain partly cloudy with possibility of intermittent rain and thunderstorm at scattered places towards late afternoon and evening — 50% chance,” he said.
May 3 and 4 are expected to experience widespread light to moderate rain and thunderstorms. “Some places are likely to receive heavy rains,” he said.
He advised farmers to postpone spraying of orchards till May 4. “Overall, the weather is likely to remain erratic till May 4,” Lotus said.
Last week, widespread rains lashed plains and snowfall was observed in higher reaches of Jammu and Kashmir intermittently.
The MeT has said March witnessed a large deficit of rainfall in many districts of Kashmir (average deficit was 69%) and also in many districts of Jammu, where average departure below normal was 44%.
