The mercury in Jammu and Kashmir stayed several degrees below season’s average as intermittent rains continued for the fourth successive day on Sunday, officials said.
The downpour lead to the suspension of Amarnath yatra fromthree main base camps and the closure of Jammu-Srinagar national highway.
The weatherman has forecast light to moderate rain orthundershowers over the state during the next 24 hours with possibility ofsnowfall in high altitude areas including Amarnath cave shrine.
The winter capital Jammu received 66.6 mm rain– the highestin any part of the state– in the last 36 hours but marked a slight increase inthe day temperature which settled at 29.2 degrees Celsius against the previousday’s 28.6 deg Celsius, a spokesman of the Met office said.
He said the day temperature in the city was still 4.4 notchesbelow normal during this part of the season.
Similarly, the night temperature in Jammu also marked amarginal increase and settled at 24.2 degrees Celsius – one degree belownormal.
However, the maximum temperature in Srinagar fell by overtwo degrees to settle at 22.6 degrees Celsius, which was 6.9 degrees below theseason’s average.The city had recorded 3.2 mm of rainfall during the day, thespokesman said.
He said Srinagar recorded near normal night temperature of18.8 degrees Celsius.
Though the downpour stopped in the second half of the day,the skies remained cloudy and the ongoing yatra to the 3,880 metre high holycave shrine of Amarnath was temporarily suspended from the three base camps —Bhagwati Nagar in Jammu, Nunwan-Pahalgam and Baltal in Kashmir.
The chopper service to the cave was also suspended for theday due to the bad weather, the officials said.
State Meteorological Department Director Sonam Lotus saidthere was no forecast of any major change in the prevailing weather conditions.
“We expect significant fall in temperature at Baltal,holy cave and Sheshnag areas during next couple of days. Holy cave area mayeven get snowfall this (Sunday) evening,” he said, urging the pilgrims totake necessary precautionary measures and wear woolen clothes and raincoats tostay warm.
He said significant improvement in the weather is mostlikely from August 1 onwards.Banihal received 22.6 mm of rainfall from 8.30am to 5.30 pm, the spokesman said.