Weather to clear by today afternoon, stay dry till month end, says MeT

Srinagar: Rain continued to lash Kashmir valley’s plains areas on Tuesday while a few higher reaches received snowfall for the second consecutive day.
The weather office said on Tuesday that weather across Kashmir valley was expected to improve completely by Wednesday afternoon while gradual improvement was expected to begin from Tuesday night.
As per weather officials, Gulmarg received light snowfall of about 8 cm till Tuesday evening but some other higher reaches of the valley received more substantial snowfall. On Monday, the higher reaches of Bandipora and Sonamarg had received about one foot of snow.
The weather officials said that till Tuesday evening over the past nine hours, Srinagar city recorded about 7.6 mm of rainfall while Qazigund recorded 12.4 mm of major rainfall. Pahalgam recorded 10.7 mm, Kokernag 14.7 mm, Kupwara 10.4 mm and Gulmarg 10.6 mm.
The incessant rainfall over the past two days left roads inundated in many parts of Kashmir. Several areas in Srinagar city faced water-logging problems on Tuesday, though the Srinagar Municipal Corporation(SMC) put in service men and machinery to clear the roads of water.
Between 28th and 29th of March, light snowfall is expected to occur at scattered and isolated places of Kashmir valley, without any major impact, the weather office said.
“The weather will start improving by Tuesday night and there will be significant improvement by Wednesday afternoon. There is another western disturbance approaching between 28th and 29th of March but it is expected to have only a low impact on higher reaches of valley, bringing light snowfall at scattered to isolated places. Largely, the weather is expected to remain dry till the end of this month,” Dr Mukhtar Ahmad, Deputy Director of the Meteorological (MeT) Department in J&K, told Kashmir Reader.
Traffic movement on the Srinagar to Jammu national highway remained suspended on Tuesday owing to landslides and shooting stones between Banihal and Ramban.
Despite this, officials said, they managed to clear many stranded vehicles, both trucks and passenger vehicles. However, several more vehicles, mostly passenger and commercial ones, were still stuck on the road but were not in any possible danger, officials said.
“There have been landslides and shooting stones at several places on the highway including at Cafeteria Morh, Sitaram Pass, and Digdol. But as of now, we have been able to clear debris from several spots except Cafeteria Morh. We are expecting to get the debris of the landslide at Cafeteria Morh cleared by Tuesday night,” Jatindar Singh Johar, SSP Traffic, Ramban, told Kashmir Reader.
For traffic movement on Wednesday, he added, the decision will be taken in the morning after reviewing the road condition.
The official communication of the traffic department said that no vehicular traffic shall be allowed from either side on the highway on Wednesday, as rainfall had triggered landslides and shooting places at several places.

Reader correspondent