Shimla, Manali receive season’s first snowfall

A man walks past snow-covered cars after winter’s first snowfall in the northern city of Shimla yesterday.

IANS/Shimla

Popular tourist resorts of Shimla, Manali, Dalhousie and their surroundings in Himachal Pradesh received the season’s first snowfall yesterday, while the lower hills across the state were lashed by rains, pushing the mercury down, the weather office said.

Hoteliers cheered in the hope that winter tourists now will converge in large numbers ahead of Christmas.

Tourist spots near Shimla, such as honeymooners’ paradise Kufri, Fagu and Narkanda, also experienced moderate snowfall, making the hill stations more picturesque.

The Solang ski slopes, 13km uphill from Manali, and Kalpa, 250km from the state capital, also received snowfall, the weather office said.

The minimum temperature in Manali was 1.2 degrees below the freezing point. The town received 18cm of snow.

Keylong in Lahaul and Spiti district was the coldest place in the state at minus 4 degrees Celsius.

It was 7.2 degrees above the freezing point in Dharamsala, minus 3 degrees in Kalpa, and 0.2 degree in Shimla.

Dharamsala town got 42.6mm rain, while McLeodganj, the uphill quaint town located on outskirts of Dharamsala, saw mild snow.

The majestic Dhauladhar ranges of the Himalayas surrounding Dharamsala wore fresh blanket of snow.

The state capital recorded 6cm of snow, while Salooni in Chamba district got 19cm of snow.

“The entire tribal belt in Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti, Kullu and Chamba district witnessed moderate to heavy snowfall during the past 24 hours,” the weather office said.

As news of the snowfall flashed in the plains, tourists from the plains flocked to the state.

“We really enjoyed hurling snowballs at each other,” said Tanisha Khanna, a tourist from Punjab’s industrial town Ludhiana who was in Manali along with her husband.

The landscape in Manali is expected to remain snowy for three to four days, the weather office said.

The snowfall and rain have cheered farmers in the region.

“The prolonged dry spell is finally over. The snow is good for the apple, peach, plum, apricot and almond trees,” a horticulture expert at the Solan-based Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry said.

He said negligible or total lack of snowfall and rain in most fruit-growing areas of the state this month had reduced the moisture content in the soil.

Tourism industry representatives are also happy after the snowfall in the popular destinations.

“We are now hopeful that the good spell of snow will attract the tourists this week, especially on Christmas,” said Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation general manager Yogesh Behl.

The Kashmir Valley also received the season’s first snowfall.

This is the first snowfall of the season in Srinagar city and other major towns of the valley like Badgam, Ganderbal, Bandipora, Kupwara, Sopore, Anantnag, Pulwama, Shopian and Kulgam.

The valley was reeling under intense cold conditions due to dry weather for the last 20 days.

The intense cold and dry weather conditions brought with them a host of respiratory ailments, including bronchitis, fever and influenza.

Doctors suggest the spurt in respiratory diseases is likely to abate because of the snowfall which will increase moisture content in the air and also raise the night temperatures.

Kashmir’s rivers and other perennial water reservoirs are dependent on a good winter snowfall which alone replenishes the water reservoirs.