While Delhi was observing a rare event of hailstorm activity in the last 24 hours, which made it look nothing less than a winter wonderland, the hills of North India have seen heavy snowfall activity during this time. So much so that an avalanche struck the Jawahar tunnel making life difficult for residents.
Along with this, Kashmir valley remained cut off from the rest of the country yesterday as Srinagar-Jammu National Highway, remained shut due to landslides in Ramban and fresh snow falling in Banihal region of Kashmir.
The snowfall activity has not only affected roads, but air traffic also suffered big time as flights remained cancelled at Srinagar Airport for the entire day yesterday. The states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand also saw some good rains and snowfall activities. Higher reaches have seen snow accumulation of about seven to eight feet, with the lower reaches seeing a foot of snow at least in many parts.
This has in fact been categorized as the season’s heaviest snowfall so far due to the Western Disturbance being one of the most intense this season. Few other factors which made it quite active was the southwesterly flow of humid winds from Arabian Sea up to a height of 30,000 feet around 9 km.
These winds increased the moisture content to higher levels in atmosphere leading to the intensification of this particular Western Disturbance due to which rain and snow activities throughout the hills were fairly widespread.
Due to this, at present Himachal Pradesh is rain deficient by a mere 10 percent coming under the normal category while Jammu and Kashmir is excess by 74 percent, and Uttarakhand is surplus by 24 percent. Moreover, many of the places have exceeded their monthly normal as of now in the first week of February itself and with more snow to come, more areas will reach and surpass their monthly normal soon.
Now, this system has moved away eastwards, however, the remnants of this system will continue to give scattered rain and snow activities over Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal and Uttarakhand for the next 24 hours. Another feeble Western Disturbance is expected to give light rain and isolated snow between February 10 and 11.
Thereafter, a comparatively active Western Disturbance will affect the hills of North India by February 13 or so. Thus, looks like snow days will not take a backseat anytime soon.
Please Note: Any information picked from here must be attributed to skymetweather.com
