Chillai Kalan 2026-27: Dates, How Cold It Gets and What It Means for Your Kashmir Trip

Chillai Kalan is the 40-day heart of the Kashmiri winter, and this winter it runs from Monday 21 December 2026 to Saturday 30 January 2027. The name is Persian: chil, forty, and kalan, great. Nights stay below freezing in Srinagar for most of it, Gulmarg is under snow, and on the hardest nights the edges of Dal Lake freeze and so do the taps at home. It is not a festival and not a closure: the valley keeps working, a little later each morning, and visitors keep coming. This page says what the 40 days are, how cold they really get, with the records dated, and what they mean if your trip falls inside them. For where and when the snow falls, start with our guide to snowfall in Kashmir; the two months it spans are in Kashmir in December and Kashmir in January.

Chillai Kalan dates 2026-27: 21 December to 30 January

Chillai Kalan begins on 21 December every year, the winter solstice, and ends 40 days later on 30 January. Two shorter spells follow it: Chillai Khurd, the small cold, for 20 days to 19 February, and Chillai Bachha, the baby cold, for 10 days to 2 March. Sources disagree by a day on the end: Wikipedia counts to 29 January and some older reports to 31 January. The count quoted from the Meteorological Centre when the 2025-26 spell began, and used on our December and January pages, is 30 January, and that is the date we use.

The first day carries two more names. 21 December is marked as Pheran Day, for the long woollen cloak Kashmiris wear all winter, and the night of 21 December is Shab-e-Yalda, or Shab-e Chelleh, the "night of forty" of the Persian calendar, the same tradition the name Chillai comes from. Nothing closes for either; both are a reason to see the old city in a pheran that day.

How cold does Chillai Kalan really get?

In Srinagar, about 7°C by day and -2°C at night on the long-term average, with cold spells to -6°C and below; in Gulmarg, about 1°C by day and -8°C at night, with -9°C to -10°C on the coldest nights. The averages are the India Meteorological Department's 1991 to 2020 normals for its three valley stations; the table gives December and January, the two months the 40 days cover.

The averages hide the nights that make the news. On 21 December 2024, the first night of that Chillai Kalan, Srinagar fell to -8.5°C, its coldest night in 33 years (PTI, 22 December 2024); parts of Dal Lake froze, and supply pipes and taps froze across the city (ETV Bharat, 24 December 2024). In the same spell Shopian read -8.8°C, Sonamarg -8.5°C, Pahalgam -7.8°C and Gulmarg -7.4°C. Srinagar's all-time low is -12.8°C, on 13 December 1934. On 14 January 2021 the city hit -8.4°C and the surface of the Dal froze hard enough for an advisory against walking on it, with the SDRF patrolling the banks (PTI). Last winter's coldest night came on 5 January 2026: Gulmarg -8.8°C, Pahalgam -4.8°C, Srinagar -3.6°C (ETV Bharat), and Srinagar reached -6.0°C on 9 January.

Cold is not the same as snowy. The last two Chillai Kalans were mostly dry. The 2024-25 spell went out "on a dry note" at the end of January 2025, with fresh snow only at Sonamarg on its last evening (Greater Kashmir, 30 January 2025). The 2025-26 spell opened with snow, about two inches at Gulmarg on 21 December 2025 and nearly nine inches by the next morning, which ended a three-month dry spell; then came 18 days without a significant fall (Sunday Guardian, 11 January 2026) before the storms of 22 to 29 January, which cancelled every flight at Srinagar on two days. December 2025 to February 2026 ended 65% below normal, the seventh dry winter in a row by the Meteorological Centre's figures (ETV Bharat, 3 March 2026). For 2026-27 the Centre's director has said an El Niño winter may again be relatively dry, with one or two big snowfalls still possible (The News Now, 9 October 2026). Once the season starts, Gulmarg snow report today carries dated reports of what has actually fallen.

What Chillai Kalan means for your trip

It means snow is likeliest, flights are least reliable, and the room you sleep in matters more than the view. The valley does not shut: the airport, the train from Katra and Jammu, the Gondola, Dal Lake, the gardens and the shrines all run through the 40 days, with snow-day interruptions. This is what changes, and what to do about it.

• Snow odds. Gulmarg is usually white from about mid-December and is the surest place to stand in snow; Srinagar gets snow on some days, never on fixed dates (its first falls came on 27 December 2024 and 23 January 2026). The last ten days of January have been the storm window in recent winters. The city's December, week by week: Srinagar in December.
• Flights and fog. Srinagar airport runs from 8 am to 5 pm with about 60 flights a day and closes for the day in dense fog or heavy snow: every flight was cancelled on 23 January 2026, and all 58 on 27 January 2026 (PTI). Book an afternoon flight home, keep a spare day before it, and check Srinagar airport status the night before.
• Dal Lake. It freezes at the edges on the coldest nights and in parts during a hard spell, as on 21 December 2024 and 10 January 2026; a full freeze is rare, the last on record in 1986. Shikaras keep running unless ice blocks the channels. Never walk on the ice: the police post an advisory and patrol the banks when it freezes.
• Water and power. Supply pipes and rooftop tanks freeze overnight in the city; the Jal Shakti Department's winter advisory (24 December 2024) tells households to insulate pipes and keep a tap trickling. In a hotel this shows up as no hot water early in the morning and heaters that stop in a power cut: residents reported 12-hour cuts in December 2024 and went back to kangris. Ask how the room is heated, whether there is backup, and when the hot water runs. The heating questions, hotel by hotel, are in Srinagar in January.
• What shuts. Schools, by order: in 2025 classes 1 to 8 broke from 1 December to 28 February and classes 9 to 12 from 11 December to 22 February, so the mornings are quieter. The Tulip Garden is shut until about mid-March, the Mughal gardens open with the fountains off, Gurez and the Mughal Road are cut off by snow, Zoji La beyond Sonamarg closes for days after a storm, and Baisaran and Chandanwari near Pahalgam are closed by order to 31 December 2026, with nothing announced for January 2027 yet.
• Daylight. 21 December is the shortest day: the sun is up in Srinagar from 7:32 am to 5:25 pm, under ten hours. Roads ice over after dark, so end every drive by sunset.

Your dates fall inside the 40 days and you are not sure how to split the nights? Get free plan: a free day-by-day plan for your dates, with hotels for each night and what each day costs.

How Kashmiris live the 40 days: pheran, kangri, hamam and harissa

The pheran, the long woollen cloak, comes out for everyone, and under it goes the kangri: a small earthen pot of embers in a wicker case, held against the stomach or under the knees, carried to the shop, to the mosque and into bed. The hamam is the other heat. It is a room with a hollow base where firewood burns under thick limestone slabs, with a copper tank, the khazane, for hot water; older homes have one, most mosques do, and during Chillai Kalan the mosque hamam is where the elders of a mohalla sit out the afternoon. Khanqah-e-Moula downtown has one. Firewood sold for ₹70 to ₹110 a kg in Srinagar last winter (Kashmir Life, 1 February 2025).

Food changes too. Kitchens turn to harissa, the slow-cooked mutton and rice eaten at breakfast, and to hokh syun, vegetables dried in summer for the winter. For our family, winter means harissa: the 4 am ride to a small shop in Rajouri Kadal, downtown, in freezing cold, worth it every time, and eaten at home with girda from the local kandur. The shops are serving by 4 am from late October or early November, and a plate costs about ₹400 to ₹1,000 depending on where you get it. The local way is still the best: someone who lives nearby picks it up first thing, so if you know someone in the city, ask. At home it is noon chai every day, the salted pink tea; kahwa is for guests and for the day someone feels unwell. What to order and where is in our guide to Kashmiri harissa.

Is Chillai Kalan a good time to visit Kashmir?

Yes, if snow is the point and you can carry a spare day; no, if you dislike cold or want gardens and green meadows. The best stretch for most trips is 6 to 20 January: the holiday crowd has gone, Gulmarg is at its surest, and our priced week came to about ₹82,600 for two at Comfort from Delhi for 12 to 16 January 2027, flights included (fares and rooms read on 25 October 2026), against at least ₹86,100 for Christmas week, when Gulmarg was nearly 100% full at New Year 2026. Mid-December, before the spell starts, has rising snow odds at December prices. The whole season, November to February, is compared on one page in Kashmir in winter.

What to wear during Chillai Kalan

Thermals every day, a heavy windproof jacket, waterproof boots with grip, gloves, a cap and a scarf; in Gulmarg a fleece under the jacket and a spare set of clothes and shoes for the snow day, because the first set is wet by lunch. Coats and snow boots are on hire at Tangmarg and in Pahalgam, so you need not buy a child a ski jacket for one afternoon. What the top of the Gondola feels like, month by month, is in Gulmarg weather by month; the packing checklists are on the December and January pages linked above.