Jammu-Srinagar national highway reopened partially

Vehicular movement on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway, the only all-weather road linking the Kashmir Valley with the rest of the country, was partially restored on Sunday, a day after it was disrupted due to heavy snowfall, a traffic department official said.

One-way traffic from Jammu towards Srinagar was allowed in view of the improvement in the weather and after clearing the snow on the road, he said.

The flight operations at Srinagar airport were also restored on Sunday, after two days of being affected due to snowfall, officials said.

On Saturday, the plains in the Valley witnessed one of the heaviest snowfalls in the recent years, leading to disruption of surface as well as air traffic.

The snowfall, which lasted from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning, threw life out of gear across Kashmir.

Weather at most places in the Valley was dry on Saturday night, but owing to clear sky, the night temperature settled below the freezing point.

Srinagar -- the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir -- recorded a minimum temperature of minus 1.2 degrees Celsius on Saturday night, a meteorological department official said.

He said Qazigund, the gateway town to the Valley, in south Kashmir recorded a low of minus 0.6 degrees Celsius, while the nearby Kokernag registered a low of minus 2.2 degrees Celsius.

The mercury settled at a low of minus 4.2 degrees in north Kashmir's Kupwara town.

Pahalgam tourist resort, which also serves as one of the base camps for the annual Amarnath Yatra, recorded a low of minus 7.9 degrees Celsius.

The official said the famous ski-resort of Gulmarg was the coldest place in Jammu and Kashmir with a low of minus 9 degrees Celsius.

Leh, in the frontier Ladakh region, recorded a low of minus 1.3 degrees Celsius, while the mercury in the nearby Kargil settled at a low of minus 4.0 degrees Celsius, he said.

The weather office has said the weather is likely to stay mostly dry across Kashmir till Thursday.