December 21, 2025 03:39 pm (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
PM Modi slams ‘cut and commission’ TMC in virtual Taherpur address | US launches Operation Hawkeye Strike in Syria targeting ISIS after Americans killed | Horror on tracks: Rajdhani Express ploughs into elephant herd, eight killed in Assam | Horror in Bangladesh: Hindu man lynched and set on fire amid violent protests | Bangladesh in flames: Student leader Sharif Osman Hadi's death triggers massive protests, media offices torched | Chaos in Dhaka! Protesters assault New Age Editor, burn down newspaper offices amid deadly unrest | After campus shootings, Trump suspends green card lottery programme | ‘Worst is over,’ says IndiGo CEO after flight chaos; staff told to ignore speculation | Chaos at Hyderabad's Lulu Mall! Nidhhi Agerwal swarmed by fans, police register case | TCS bets big on AI, shares spike as company reveals ambitious plan

Srinagar experiences coldest day as mercury drops to minus 6.5 beginning 40-day period of harshest weather

| | Dec 21, 2016, at 09:46 pm
Srinagar, Dec 21 (IBNS) : Srinagar experienced the coldest day of the season as mercury plummeted to a shuddering minus 6.5 degree celsius on Wednesday that heralded the onset of 'Chillai Kalan', a local epithet for a 40-day long period of chill, considered as the harshest period of winter.

The cold has resulted in freezing of water bodies, including the world famous Dal Lake, at several places.

‘Chillai Kalan’ is the period when the chances of snowfall are maximum and the most frequent as well.

“The day temperature in Srinagar was recorded 9.9 degrees and it will get further cold in the  coming days”, said a MET official.

Many  Srinagar residents saw  the water stored in tanks at top their houses frozen due to the intense overight cold.

Snowfall and rains during the winter usually leaves the  Valley cut off from the rest of the country as the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, the only road linking Kashmir to other parts of the country gets blocked at several places.

Towards the end of January, the Chillai Kalan comes to an end but that does not mark the end of chill in Kashmir.

It is followed by a 20-day long ‘Chillai Khurd’ (small cold) and a 10-day-long ‘Chilla Bachha’ (baby cold).

(Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri)

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.