Due to ongoing incessant weather activity across the hills, at present ‘Severe’ Cold Day and Cold Wave conditions, both have been active across all the three states of Jammu-Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. For the entire month of January, Srinagar’s temperatures have remained in sub-zero category, barring the one day of January 3 when it was recorded at 0.2°C. Many popular hilly stations like that of Shimla, Dalhousie etc. are observing sub-zero temperatures. In the last 24 hours, Keylong in Himachal observed minimum temperatures at -17°C (seven degrees below normal) and day temperatures were at -5.2°C (five degrees below normal). The hilly destination of Chamba in Himachal Pradesh is at 12°C (ten degrees below normal), Mukteshwar in Uttarakhand is at 4.6°C (eight degrees below normal), Srinagar recorded -3.5°C (departure from normal -3°C) while Pahalgam recorded -14°C which is deviant from normal by -7°C.
Further as well we do not see any respite from the Cold at least in the coming few days. In the absence of any weather activity nights will continue to be cold whereas day temperatures might see a bit relaxation due to sunny days.
One another Western Disturbance will make an appearance by tomorrow itself, that will give some weather activity on January 30 and 31 across all the three states. This two-day weather activity will revive all the season associated risks like that of avalanche and landslide yet again.
Winter activity across the hilly states of India had started with a very poor note across the region in terms of rain and snow. The trio states were running deficient by big numbers sometimes even exceeding the 70% mark. The extremely northern state of Jammu and Kashmir still did a little better than the other two of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
Although the rainy spell of January 20- 23 had reversed the scenario. The extreme downpour led to all three states becoming rain surplus yet again. From this last spell and after i.e. January 23 to 28 the weather activity has been a little subdued leading to a significant shift in rain deficiency data. Uttarakhand however, still had a normal share. And this has shown in the data too. The earlier number of rain surplus for Jammu and Kashmir dropped down from 105% to 72%, while for Himachal Pradesh it dropped from 24% to 12%. However, for Uttarakhand it has increased from an earlier number of 67% to 73%.
February onward, the intensity of Winters will start receding. Although the month will see weather systems more frequently, but the duration for these systems will decrease that will mean more breaks, but also more activity.
Image Credits – Kashmir Observer
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