Rain, fresh snowfall break dry spell in Kashmir

Light rain and snowfall occurred in Jammu and Kashmir Thursday breaking the nearly two-month long dry spell in the state.

"There has been light snowfall in the higher reaches and rainfall in the plains of Jammu and Kashmir during the night," an official of the Met department told IANS.

"Gulmarg received 20 cm of fresh snowfall during the night while Pahalgam and Bannihal received eight and four centimetres of fresh snowfall respectively."

"Trikuta Hills in the Jammu region also received light snowfall during the night. Present weather conditions are likely to continue during the next 24 hours after which there would be improvement," the official added.

Jammu city recorded 10.6 degrees as the minimum temperature while it was 8.5 in Mata Vaishno Devi base camp town of Katra, 2.1 in Batote, 0.2 in Bannihal, 1.1 in Bhaderwah and 9.1 Udhampur towns of Jammu region.

Weather office said with minus 4.5 degrees Celsius as the night's lowest temperature, Gulmarg Ski resort was the coldest in the Valley.

"The minimum temperature was 1.3 in Srinagar, 3.0 in Pahalgam and minus 4.5 in Gulmarg which was the coldest in the Valley," the official said.

"In the Ladakh region, Leh town recorded minus 4.2 while Kargil town recorded minus 4.0 as the minimum temperature today."

Meanwhile, snow clearance operations were started in the Jawahar Tunnel sector of the Jammu-Srinagar national highway at 4.00 a.m. today.