Post Snow came deep freeze across Valley

Mercury drops to -12°C in Gulmarg, touches four-year low

The temperature in the Kashmir valley registered a significant drop overnight with the mercury falling 12 degrees below the freezing point in Gulmarg resort, where it marked the season’s coldest night.
The minimum temperature in north Kashmir’s Gulmarg resort, where the meadows are covered under 4 to 5 feet of snow, dropped to -12.0°C, according to the state meteorological department said.
It was the coldest temperature of the ongoing winter season in the Kashmir valley so far and also the lowest the mercury has dropped at the famed resort in the past four years. In 2012, the night temperature in Gulmarg had dropped to —16.5°C.
The drop in the temperature has come as the region received a spell of heavy snowfall which had blocked roads and highways and also suspended air traffic here.
The snowfall, which continued incessantly for two days on Friday and Saturday, ended one of the longest dry spells in the past four decades. The meteorological department in its forecast said the weather was likely to remain dry in the region for the rest of the week.
The cold, which has now gripped the region which is in the midst of the 40-day-long winter’s harshest phase, is likely to worsen during the next few days.
In Srinagar, where the overnight temperature had plunged to -2.3°C, the mercury is likely to further dip four to five degrees below the freezing point during the rest of the week.
The mercury overnight in south Kashmir’s tourist resort of Pahalgam had dropped to -9.2° C. In the frontier Kupwara town of north Kashmir, where remote areas were cut off by snowfall, the minimum temperature was recorded at -3.6°C, while the temperature had dropped to a low of -2.0°C in south Kashmir’s gateway town of Qazigund.