Monday, December 26, 2011

Coldest night of 2011 in Valley

As the temperatures across Kashmir continued to plummet, the State's summer capital, Srinagar, witnessed coldest night of the season with minimum temperature recorded at minus 4.8 degrees Celsius last night.

The Meteorological Department has forecast that dry and cold weather conditions will continue for next one week and the temperatures will plummet further in the region.

With the dipping temperatures, the cold wave in Kashmir intensified resulting in the freezing of the parts of Srinagar's world famous Dal lake.

Early in the morning the water near the banks of the Dal lake was frozen as a thin lawyer of ice formation had taken place. However, in the interior areas, where water mostly remains stagnant and sunlight does not reach due to tree line, thick ice layer had formed. However, with the Sun coming out, the ice layer near peripheries vanished.

The Dal lake froze completely in 1960s and it again froze in 1986 attracting large number of tourists to the lake to see it frozen. Recently, the lake froze in 2006 and children played cricket on the surface of the frozen lake. Last year, parts of Dal lake particularly near the peripheries were frozen due to subzero temperatures.

Meanwhile, majority of the Kashmiris woke up to the frozen water tapes leading to the water crisis in the morning. It was only in the afternoon when Sun came out that the frozen tapes started melting giving relief to the people from the temporary water crisis.

There was some relief from the intense cold wave conditions during the day as Sun was out with maximum temperature settling at 8 degrees Celsius.

While Srinagar recorded the lowest night temperature of the season at minus 4.8 degree Celsius, the mercury in tourist resort of Gulmarg in North Kashmir recorded a marginal increase over the last two days as the minimum temperature there settled at minus 9.8 degrees Celsius, said an official of the MeT department.

It may be mentioned here that the Gulmarg recorded a low of minus 12 degrees Celsius for two consecutive nights two days ago.

The tourist resort of Pahalgam in South Kashmir recorded a minus 8.8 degrees Celsius. Previous night the temperature settled at minus 7.4 degrees Celsius.

In North Kashmir district of Kupwara, the minimum temperature was recorded at minus 4.7 degrees Celsius and in Qazigund South Kashmir it was recorded at minus 5.6 degree Celsius.

The MeT official said that in Leh, the minimum temperature dropped by nearly one degree compared to yesterday to settle at minus 16.2 degree Celsius. Kargil recorded a low of minus 12 degrees Celsius.

In the State's winter capital, Jammu, the impact of dipping temperature was felt with night temperature dipping to a low of 4.3 degrees Celsius. However, the day temperature settled at 20 degrees Celsius.

No comments:

Post a Comment