Drass touches minus 22 deg C: temperatures slide in Northwest

New Delhi, Dec 29 (UNI) The mercury plummetted to minus 22 degrees Celsius in Drass and heavy snowfall forced the closure of Srinagar-Drass road for six months while temperatures slid in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

Delhi recorded the season's lowest minimum of 5 degrees.

In Punjab, while Ludhiana recorded 2.1 degrees, the lowest recorded in the plains, the mercury stayed one degree below normal at Amritsar and Patiala, respectively recording 4.7 degrees and 5.8 degrees. Cold wave also lashed Chandigarh and it recorded night temperature of 5.1 degrees.

The minimum also plummeted in Haryana with Karnal recording four degrees, four degrees below normal, while Ambala showed 4.4 degrees, three degrees below normal. Hissar registered 6.1 degrees and Narnaul 6.5 degrees.

In Himachal Pradesh, the minimum hovered below zero degree in the tribal districts of Lahaul Spiti and Kinnaur and Pangi valley and Bharmour area in Chamba district. Bhuntar in Kullu district recorded the minimum at 0.2 degrees while Sundernagar in Mandi district reported 2.4 degrees. However, Shimla was warmer recording the minimum at 7.6 degrees, five degrees above normal.

The Met Office has predicted light to moderate rain or snow at isolated places in Himachal Pradesh and partly cloudy days with fog or mist during night and morning in Haryana and Punjab during the next 24 hours.

Drass in Jammu and Kashmir remained bitterly cold with minimum temperature dipping to minus 22 degrees while it was yet another sunny day in Kashmir as the minimum temperature was minus 15 degrees and maximum minus 5.5 degrees.

The Srinagar-Drass road was closed for six months due to heavy snowfall at Zojila, Gumri and Zero point. However, Drass-Kargil and Leh Highway remained open despite snowfall.

The District authorities and Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, Kargil, claimed that enough stock of essential commodities, kerosene oil and LPG gas was available in all parts of the district.

Cold Northwesterly winds, coupled with snowfall in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal and Uttaranchal over the past two days under influence of a Western disturbance, brought down the temparatures in the national Capital and Rajasthan.

Delhi recorded its season's lowest of 5 degrees which is nearly two degrees below normal, from 9.5 degrees yesterday.

The maximum temperature also dropped to 20 degrees.

The severe chill is likely to persist in the next few days with weatherman forecasting a fall in night temperatures by 1-2 degrees in the next 24 hours.

For the second day today, visibility levels in Delhi remained normal.

Though fog was witnessed in the morning, it soon dissipated towards noon. A spokesperson of the Airports Authority of India said flight operations at the International airport were normal this morning.

The temperature at Jaipur in Rajasthan plunged to three degrees.

Although the sun was bright, cold winds have further aggravated the cold wave conditions.

Churu was the coldest in the state today, freezing at 2.5 degrees. Many places in the state witnessed a fall of three to five degrees.

According to the weather department, Pilani in Jhunjhunu district recorded 3.1 degrees, Ganganagar 4.1, Bikaner 5.4, Barmer 7.7, Jaisalmer 8.7, Udaipur 8.8, Ajmer 9.5, Jodhpur 10.4 and Kota 10.7 degrees.

Very light rains occurred at isolated places in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya.

Rain or thundershowers occurred at a few places in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Mainly dry weather prevailed in Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, West Bengal, Sikkim, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar and Lakshadweep.

UNI Team KD VV1920