At -9.7°C, Pahalgam sees record cold night

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 14

As the cold wave tightened its grip over the Kashmir valley, a famous tourist resort in south Kashmir recorded its coldest December night of the decade as the minimum temperature there plummeted nearly 10 degrees below the freezing point.

An official of the Srinagar Meteorological Centre said the overnight minimum temperature in Pahalgam resort, a tourist spot in south Kashmir famous for its picturesque landscape of meadows and a roaring stream, was recorded at -9.7° Celsius.

The overnight minimum temperature in Pahalgam was the lowest in more than a decade even as the Kashmir valley is still in the early phase of winter. The core period of winter, which lasts 40 days and is known as “chillai kalan” in local parlance, will begin next week.

The extraordinarily freezing temperature in Pahalgam last night has beaten the coldest December temperature of the decade recorded there when mercury had plunged to -9.6° on December 27, 2013.

The last year’s coldest night temperature in December was recorded at -3.4° Celsius while the all-time low in Pahalgam was -15.7° Celsius in 1986.

Another famous tourist resort in north Kashmir, Gulmarg, registered a freezing -11° Celsius, six degrees below the average for this time of the year. coldest December night recorded in Gulmarg during the past decade was -12.4° Celsius in 2015.