Weather to improve today afternoon, Srinagar-Jammu highway shut for traffic today

Srinagar: A few upper reaches received light snowfall while rains continued to lash plains across Kashmir for the third straight day on Saturday even as the weatherman predicted improvement in weather from today afternoon.

Earlier, the Meteorological Centre (MeT) had predicted wet spell across Jammu and Kashmir between April 14 and 16 with major intensity of precipitation during earlier two days. But the wet spell continued beyond this period till Saturday evening. Though, the MeT had predicted “erratic” weather conditions in J&K till Sunday.

Weather officials said that there will be significant improvement in weather across J&K from Sunday afternoon.

“The weather will gradually improve after Saturday evening and finally bear a significant change till the afternoon of Sunday. It has been raining heavily in past few days now there will be a slight respite from rains till April 20 (Tuesday),” Dr Mukhtar Ahmad, Deputy Director MeT Srinagar told Kashmir Reader.

But the dry spell is not expected to last longer as J&K is likely to face another wet spell between Tuesday evening to Thursday morning resulting in widespread rainfall over the plains and light snowfall over the higher reaches.

“Another wet spell will hit J&K on April 20 (Tuesday evening) bringing widespread rains in plains and light snowfall in upper reaches of J&K for up to a period of almost two days till Thursday morning,” he added.

According to him, weather was likely to improve across Jammu and Kashmir from Thursday and will remain dry for the next couple of days till April 26.

On Saturday, a few upper reaches of Kashmir including Gulmarg and Razdan Top in Gurez received fresh snowfall. Gulmarg, as per officials, received about two to three inches of fresh snow while Razdan top received relatively larger snowfall of over 6 inches.

Due to which, the Bandipora to Gurez road was shut on Saturday after the authorities ordered closure of the road citing accumulation of snow. Notably, the said road was thrown open for vehicular traffic just a week ago after hectic efforts of snow clearance by the authorities.

The plains of valley, on the other hand, have been witnessing rainfall over the past few days with no major let up in rains experienced on Saturday. The rains continued with its trend, though intermittently, taking a brief pause in the day.

As per weather officials, Srinagar recorded about 15 mm of rainfall, Qazigund recorded about 35 mm of rainfall till Saturday evening. Pahalgam in South Kashmir received comparatively lesser rainfall of about 11 mm with Kokernag receiving about 27 mm of rainfall till the evening of Saturday, officials said.

Gulmarg received nearly 25 mm of rainfall and Kupwara received about 20 mm of rainfall during the same period, said the officials.

While as, the incessant rains led to the decrease in minimum temperatures across Kashmir valley on Saturday. The weather officials said that Srinagar city recorded a low of 7.2 degree Celsius, down from 8.0 degree Celsius on the previous night while Qazigund recorded a low of 6.2 degree Celsius, down from 7.4 degree Celsius on the earlier night.

Gulmarg, officials said, recorded the lowest temperature of 0.5 degree Celsius, down from 1.0 degree Celsius on the earlier night. Kupwara in North Kashmir recorded a low of 6.0 degree Celsius, against 6.3 degree Celsius of the previous night, said the officials.

Pahalgam, however, recorded an increase in temperature at 5.3 degree Celsius, up from 3.4 degree Celsius recorded a night before. Kokernag recorded a low of 4.8 degree Celsius, down from 6.0 degree Celsius on the previous night, the officials said.

Meanwhile, vehicular traffic on the Srinagar to Jammu National Highway will remain suspended today. Traffic police authorities said that no vehicular movement shall be allowed on either side of the highway on Sunday in view of inclement weather triggering landslides and shooting stones at several places.

Reader correspondent