Fresh snowfall in Valley, more likely in next two days

Jammu/Srinagar, Jan 24 (IANS) Light snowfall in the plains and moderate to heavy in the higher reaches occurred on Tuesday in Jammu and Kashmir, the weather office said, adding more rain and snow is likely during the next two days.

"There has been widespread light rain and snowfall in the plains and heavy snowfall in the higher reaches of Jammu and Kashmir during the last 12 hours.

"More rain and snowfall is likely to occur during the next two days till Thursday as a Western Disturbance (WD) is presently active over the state", an official of the Met department said.

Due to heavy cloud cover during the last 24 hours, there has been remarkable improvement in minimum temperatures throughout the state.

Minimum temperatures throughout the Jammu province remained above the freezing point on Tuesday in contrast to the last one month when Bannihal and Bhaderwah had constantly recorded below the freezing point.

"The minimum temperature was 11.3 degrees Celsius in Jammu on Tuesday. It was 6.9 in Batote, 3.2 in Bannihal, 3.0 in Bhaderwah and 11.9 in Katra.

"The night's lowest temperature was minus 0.6 degree Celsius in Srinagar while it was minus 1.3 in Pahalgam and minus 5.4 in Gulmarg.

"Leh town recorded minus 6.1 degree Celsius and Kargil minus 8.4 as the minimum temperatures on Tuesday", the Met official added.