Fog continued to envelope Kashmir for the fifth consecutive day on Friday, effecting the normal life in the Valley. The India Meteorological Department, however, has forecast improvement in visibility from Saturday (December 30) because of a feeble western weather system.
Parts of the Valley, including summer capital Srinagar, were seen covered with fog in the morning, disrupting traffic movement and business activities.
The MeT said that the weather would continue to be cloudy with dry with moderate to dense fog over plains of Kashmir and Jammu division.
“There will be slight improvement in visibility during December 30 and 31 due to approaching feeble western disturbance,” said MeT’s Srinagar centre director Mukhtar Ahmad.
He added that they expect light snowfall at isolated higher reaches on January 4.
“Fog likely to continue till January 4 due to absence of any major wet spell. Overall, no significant weather activity till the January 4,” he added.
Independent weather observer Faizan Arif posed on micr-blogging platform “X” that the approaching Western Disturbance was set to influence Jammu and Kashmir over Saturday and Sunday, but was unlikely to bring any precipitation.
“Despite the chance of a slight improvement in foggy conditions over the next 48 hours, ...the forecast indicates that Jammu and Kashmir will continue to experience foggy weather, whether it’s shallow or dense, for the next seven days,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“Despite the chance of a slight improvement in foggy conditions over the next 48 hours, ...the forecast indicates that Jammu and Kashmir will continue to experience foggy weather, whether it’s shallow or dense, for the next seven days,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}Kashmir’s harshest winter period, “Chilla-i-Kalan”, began last week with the mercury dropping several notches below the freezing point at many places.
While the day temperatures remain between 8°C to 12°C, the minimum night temperatures continued to remain below zero on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday in the valley.
The southern Konibal area and Pahalgam tourist resort were the coldest at minus 6.5°C and minus 5.4°C, respectively. The ski resort of Gulmarg in the north recorded temperature of minus 2.5°C, the only place with temperature about 3.7 notches higher than the normal at this time.
In Srinagar, the temperature was minus 3.3°C, about 1.2 notches below normal for the summer capital.
The MeT update further added that the gateway to Kashmir in the south, Qazigund recorded a minimum of minus 4.2°C and the southern area of Kokernag observed a minimum of minus 2.6°C. In north Kashmir, Kupwara recorded a low of minus 4°C.
Kashmir’s winter pans out in three stages, starting with the 40-day intense period from December 21, followed by 20 days of comparatively less intense chill (Chilla-i-Khurd), and final 10 days of mild cold (Chill-e-Bache).