Check if date is a valid one
Was able to find the solution. Since the date I am getting is in ISO format, only providing date to moment will validate it, no need to pass the dateFormat.
var date = moment("2016-10-19");
And then date.isValid() gives desired result.
var date = moment('2016-10-19', 'DD-MM-YYYY', true);
You should add a third argument when invoking moment that enforces strict parsing. Here is the relevant portion of the moment documentation http://momentjs.com/docs/#/parsing/string-format/ It is near the end of the section.