Kashmir valley receives fresh snowfall

It started raining in Srinagar and other parts of the valley early today, resulting in further dip in the day temperature which was on a slide over the past couple of days.

Snowfall was reported from high-altitude areas including Jawahar Tunnel, the gateway to Kashmir valley, along the 294 kms Srinagar-Jammu national highway, officials said.

The light snowfall did not disrupt traffic on the arterial road. The situation is being monitored along the highway on hourly basis as forecast was of moderate to heavy snowfall in the Pir Panchal Range this week, they said.

Reports of snowfall were also received from Shopian in south Kashmir, Sonamarg on Srinagar-Leh national highway and Razdan top in Bandipora district, they said.

The famous ski resort of Gulmarg in north Kashmir, which received couple of inches of snowfall over the past two days, witnessed brief spells of rains since this morning.

Gulmarg remained the coldest place in the valley with a low of minus 8.2 degrees Celsius, a spokesman of the MET office said.

However, Kargil and Leh towns of frontier Ladakh region continued to be the coldest place in the state despite a notable improvement of several notches in the night temperature which settled at minus 9.0 degrees Celsius at both places.