Srinagar, December 30: The cold wave that has gripped the Kashmir valley and the UT of Ladakh continued to intensify as the overnight temperature in Srinagar dropped to -6.2°C while the remote Drass town recorded -28.7°C.
The fall in minimum temperatures across the region is consistent during the past two weeks as Kashmir remains in the midst of a bitter ‘Chillai Kalan’, the 40-day-long period of extreme cold weather that lasts till January-end.
In Srinagar the main city of the Kashmir valley the overnight temperature plunged to a low of -6.2°C, making it the coldest night of the season so far.
The tourist resort of Pahalgam in south Kashmir recorded another freezing night as the temperature there dropped to -10.4°C while north Kashmir’s famed Gulmarg resort recorded a low of -6.6°C, an official of the Meteorological Centre here said.
Qazigund, Kashmir valley’s southern gateway town, registered a low of -9.5°C overnight while the frontier Kupwara town in north Kashmir recorded a low of -6.1°C.
The winter in the Kashmir valley began earlier this season as two back-to-back spells of heavy snowfall enveloped the region. Another spell of snow is expected later this week.
The Ladakh region, situated in the Northeast of the Kashmir valley, witnesses extreme winter and is also home to Drass town, the second-most coldest inhabited place on earth.
The overnight temperature in Drass, a sparsely populated highway town, had dropped to a low of -28.7°C, the MeT official said. Drass holds the record of registering a minimum of -60°C on January 9, 1995.
The overnight minimum temperature in the Leh town of Ladakh was recorded at a low of -19°C, the official said.
MeT predicts snowfall
The Metrological Department’s weekly forecast, issued on Sunday, has predicted snowfall in some places of Kargil district, which is most likely during the afternoon of January 1 to 3 with the maximum precipitation on January 2. It also forecasted another spell of higher intensity of snowfall likely on January 5 and 6.
