Overnight rain lashes Kashmir, temperature falls in valley

|HT|

After days of above average temperatures, overnight rains lashed Kashmir on Saturday bringing down the mercury in the valley. The Meteorological Centre in J&K said that there was a good spell of rain and thunder in the union territory in the wee hours.

“Mostly the rains were concentrated on the northern and the central Kashmir side. South Kashmir saw lesser impact of the ongoing weather system,” said meteorologist Farooq Ahmad Bhat.

According to the morning weather bulletin of MeT, the ski resort of Gulmarg in north Kashmir recorded 14.2 mm rain till 8:30 in the morning while it was 11.6 mm in the north frontier district of Kupwara. Central district and capital Srinagar reported 6 mm rains.

Just before noon as this report was being filed, the sun was shining bright in the capital Srinagar. The weather system, locally called western disturbance, hit the region during the intervening night of Friday and Saturday and is expected to sustain for the next 24 hours.

“We expect more rains for today and tomorrow owing to the ongoing weather system,” Bhat said.

Kashmir has witnessed increasingly hot weather for the past one week bringing cheers to floriculturists who expect an early bloom at the Tulip Garden in Srinagar.

The day temperatures in Kashmir were hovering around 25ºC, some 9-10 degree above normal. In Jammu division, the temperatures went up to record 33-34 degree in some parts.

The rise in temperature is considered good for early blooming of flowers meant for ornamentation and tourism, but bad for horticulture as it impacts the quality of fruits owing to fluctuating temperatures, experts say. The heat factor, meanwhile, has prompted the bloom of flowering plants like hyacinths and daffodils and also some early blooming varieties of tulips at Srinagar’s Tulip Garden, one of the biggest in Asia where 1.5 million flowers are expected to bloom this year.

MeT officials said that the rains have brought some relief from the heat conditions. “We expect some decline in day temperatures for a few days,” said Bhat.

The weather office said that Srinagar recorded 27.4ºC on Friday against a normal of 14.9ºC. The highest of 27.8ºC was witnessed in south Kashmir’s Qazigund where it should have been 14.7ºC at this time of the year under normal weather conditions.

In Jammu division, 33.1 ºC were recorded in Jammu district while it was 30.4 ºC in Katra.

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