Srinagar: As the Valley received light intermittent rains or snowfall since the intervening night of Friday-Saturday, the weathermen on Saturday predicted improvement in weather conditions from Sunday morning, saying that the rain or snowfall would continue to occur during the night.

Director of Meteorological (MeT) department, Sonum Lotus said the various higher reaches including Gulmarg received snowfall while the plains received light rains since the morning.

He said that Gulmarg, the famous ski-resort received snowfall of 7 inches since morning. “The intermittent snowfall is currently going on there,” he informed.

Lotus informed that various other places including Zanskar, Leh also witnessed light snowfall today.

“The weather conditions in the Valley would improve from Sunday. The light rains would continue during the intervening night of Saturday-Sunday,” he said.

Asked about the dip in temperature, the Dir MeT said that the temperature today was recorded 8 degree down from yesterday (Friday). “The temperature was recorded 8 degree Celsius while on Friday it was recorded 16 degree Celsius,” he said.

He informed that there would be gradual improvement in the temperature on Sunday.

Earlier, on Thursday, the local MeT department had predicted moderate snow or rainfall across the Valley from February 23 evening to Feb 25.

Meanwhile, Srinagar, the summer capital of the state recorded 5.8 degree Celsius. Tourist destination Pahalgam was at 2.7 degrees and Gulmarg recorded minus 2.0 degree Celsius.

Jammu city was at 15.3, Katra 13.8, Batote 7.3, Banihal 7.2, Bhaderwah 6.4, Udhampur was at 14.0 degrees Celsius and Leh was coldest at minus 3.0.

However, despite rain or snowfall, the 300 km long Srinagar-Jammu highway, only road connecting valley with rest of the country was through.

Official spokesman of the Traffic police department said that the vehicles coming from Jammu-Srinagar were allowed to ply normally today. “The vehicles heading from Srinagar-Jammu will be allowed to ply on Sunday in case of good weather and road conditions,” he informed. 

However, the officials said that scores of roads. Connecting far-flung areas remained closed that include Mughal road, Srinagar-Kargil road, Kargil- Zanaskar road, Bandipora-Gurez road and Anantnag- Kishtwar road is closed. 

While as the several roads which also connect the far-off places including Kupwara-Machil road, Kupwara-Keran road and Kupwara-Karnah road remained open. 

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