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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)

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