Srinagar: The Jammu-Srinagar national highway remained closed for the second day on Wednesday due to snow accumulation with authorities making efforts to restore the arterial road, officials said.
The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) personnel are sprinkling salt and urea on the road to improve conditions for safe driving as parts of highway remained slippery due to frosty conditions after the snowfall, the officials said.
Most parts of Kashmir received snowfall on Tuesday that led to the suspension of traffic on the 270-km highway and flight operations at the Srinagar airport here.
However, the flight operations resumed at the airport on Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile, the night temperature plunged several degrees below the freezing point at most places in Kashmir on Tuesday night, the officials said.
However, Srinagar recorded warmer than expected night temperature.
The minimum in the city settled at 0.1 degrees Celsius, a degree above the season’s normal.
Srinagar city and Baramulla town (at 0.4 degrees Celsius) were the only places in Kashmir where the night temperature settled above the freezing point.
The tourist resorts of Gulmarg in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district and Sonamarg in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, were the coldest recorded places in the Valley, recording a low of minus 9.8 degrees Celsius, the officials said.
The Pahalgam tourist resort in south Kashmir, which also serves as one of the base camps for the annual Amarnath Yatra, recorded a low of minus 6.4 degrees Celsius.
The minimum temperature in Qazigund, the gateway town of the Valley, settled at minus 4.3 degrees Celsius, while Kokernag recorded a low of minus 2.6 degrees Celsius and Kupwara minus 0.7 degrees Celsius, they added.
The Kashmir Valley is currently at the fag-end of ‘Chilla-i-Kalan’, a 40-day period of extreme cold during which night temperatures often drop several degrees below the freezing point, and the chances of snowfall are the highest.
‘Chilla-i-Kalan’, which began on December 21 last year, ends on January 30.
The Meteorological Department has forecast the possibility of light rain/snow at a few places on Wednesday, and said the weather would remain cloudy but dry after that till January 31.
A fresh western disturbance is likely to impact the region on February 1 which could bring another spell of wet weather, it said.–(PTI)
