Chillai Kalan: Kashmir’s harshest winter period begins on dry note

Interior parts of Dal Lake in Srinagar were frozen on the night of Tuesday with the weather office predicting continued dry and cold weather as Kashmir’s harshest 40-day winter period ‘Chillai Kalan’ begins on Wednesday.

The meteorological (MeT) department said the Chillai Kalan will start on a dry note. “The weather is mainly clear to partly cloudy. Dry weather is expected till December 25 evening,” MeT said in an update.

Residents said the upper water layer of Dal Lake had frozen in certain areas during the night owing to temperature dropping to minus 3.4 degrees Celsius in Srinagar.

“Interiors of the lake froze and we expect the lake to freeze fully in the coming days as the cold is getting intense,” said Abdul Rashid, a local living on the lake.

The mercury dropped below zero degrees during the night at all weather stations of Kashmir.

The MeT weather update said that the coldest place in the Valley was Pahalgam at -5.4 degrees Celsius. Pahalgam had recorded the season’s lowest of -5.6 degrees on December 7. The ski resort of Gulmarg recorded a low of -4 degrees Celsius against -2.5 degrees on the previous night.

In Jammu division, Banihal was the coldest at -1.2 degrees; however the Jammu district witnessed 6.7 degrees during the night. Katra recorded 7.5 degrees. Leh and Kargil in Ladakh froze at -11.8°C.

The weather office has predicted mostly cloudy weather with chances of light snow at isolated places from December 26 over north and northwestern parts of the Valley.

“Light to moderate rain and snowfall is expected at isolated places of Jammu and at scattered places of Kashmir on December 29 and 30,” the update said.

Kashmir’s winter pans out in three stages, starting with the 40-day intense period from December 21(Chillai Kalan) followed by 20 more days that are less intense (Chillai Khurd) and lastly 10 days of mild cold (Chille Bache).

The months of November and December so far for the major part were dry, recording below average rainfall or snowfall in Kashmir this year, the MeT said.

However, the rainfall during this year’s monsoon was normal after two years of deficit with Kashmir valley receiving 270mm average rainfall from June 1 to September 29, an increase of 6% than the normal of 254 mm.

Similarly, Jammu division experienced 886mm average rainfall in the four monsoon months, an increase of 7% than the normal 826 mm.