Srinagar: The famous ski resort of Gulmarg and other high altitude areas of North Kashmir witnessed moderate to heavy snowfall on Wednesday, prompting authorities to suspend traffic to border villages of Kupwara and Bandipora districts.
Heavy snowfall was witnessed in Gulmarg, 55 kms from here, since around 8 AM and over three inches of fresh snow accumulated on the slopes of the resort, officials said here.
Gulmarg had experienced over 2.5-foot snow on November 8-9 but subsequent improvement in weather saw nearly most of it melting during the past fortnight.
Its peripherial areas including Aferwath, Kangdoori and Khilanmarg too recorded heavy snowfall ranging between 1.5 to two foot.
High altitude areas of North Kashmir, particularly the passes along the Line of Control (LoC), received heavy snowfall since early today.
Flakes of snow covered Sadna top, Farkian Gali, Z-Gali and Machil in frontier Kupwara district and Gurez and Razdan pass in Bandipora district and nearly two-ft snow accumulated in most of the areas, the officials said, adding Gurez recorded two inches and Machil witnessed six inches of snow.
Meanwhile, fresh snowfall prompted authorities to suspend traffic on roads leading to border areas of Keran, Karnah, Machil and Gurez sectors as a precautionary measure.
The border areas usually remain cut off from rest of the valley during winter season owing to heavy snowfall.
The officials said there was no report of fresh snowfall from anywhere in South Kashmir.
However, a mild snowfall was reported from high altitude areas along the 434-km Srinagar-Leh national highway including Zojilla pass. The last snowfall forced authorities to announce the closure of the arterial road, the only link between frontier Ladakh region and rest of the state.
Meanwhile, cloudy conditions provided some respite to the people of Ladakh and Kashmir from biting cold conditions.
Leh and Kargil district towns of Ladakh region, where the night temperature has noose dived to below minus 20 degree Celsius, recorded a minimum of minus 17.6 and minus 15 Celsius respectively, the Met office said.
It said the minimum temperature in the valley also improved though mercury still remained below zero degree Celsius.
Pahalgam recorded a night temperature of minus 3.2 C and Gulmarg in North Kashmir minus 3.0 C against a minimum of minus 4.5 and minus 3.8 degree Celsius respectively yesterday.
Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, where the sun shone late this afternoon after remaining hidden behind the clouds, recorded a minimum of minus one degree Celsius, the Met office said.
Meanwhile, on a request from the Jammu and Kashmir government, the IAF airlifted 1,300 civilians stranded in Srinagar and Kargil by pressing into service two IL-76 transport aircraft from the Western Air Command (WAC) since yesterday.
The two aircraft flew six sorties between Leh and Srinagar to airlift the stranded civilians, a WAC spokesperson in Delhi said.
Snowfall during the past week had led to the closure of Zozilla Pass between Srinagar and Kargil, preventing transit of local population.
- PTI
First Published: Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 21:03