Himachal shivers, Shimla sees coldest night of season
By IANSSunday, January 16, 2011
SHIMLA - An intense cold wave saw most parts of Himachal Pradesh shivering Sunday with Shimla at a biting minus 3.3 degrees Celsius, a day after the state saw rains and snowfall.
Shimla, which saw 5 cm of snow since Saturday, experienced its coldest night of the season. Flights in and out of the state, however, resumed after a day’s gap but were running late.
“The night temperature of Shimla fell by 1.6 degrees from Saturday’s 1.7 degrees. It was for the first time the night temperature nose-dived to sub-zero,” a weather official said.
Vehicular traffic was disrupted in upper Shimla after Saturday’s snowfall.
Popular tourist spots near Shimla like Kufri and Narkanda also saw good spells of snow in the past two days. Kasauli tourist resort in Solan district also received mild snowfall Saturday evening.
Kalpa in Kinnaur district saw 10.6 cm of snow, whereas Manali in Kullu district, Dalhousie in Chamba district and McLeodganj in Kangra district got moderate snow.
The Rohtang Pass (13,050 feet) and the Baralacha Pass (16,020 ft) - located on the Manali-Leh highway - experienced heavy snowfall.
The resort town of Kalpa recorded a minimum temperature of minus 9 degrees Celsius, while it was 0.2 degrees in Bhuntar and minus 0.2 degrees in Dharamsala.
Met officials said the entire tribal belt in Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti, Kullu and Chamba districts witnessed heavy snowfall in the past two days.
Widespread rainfall was also reported across the mid and lower hills.
An official at Shimla airport said all flights were operating but were running behind schedule Sunday. No flight operated between Delhi and Shimla, Delhi and Dharamsala and Delhi and Kullu Saturday.
A government spokesperson said no state-run bus has been plying in upper Shimla since Saturday evening as a large number of vehicles were stuck in snow between Kufri and Narkanda.
The weather forecast said the western disturbances - storm systems originating from Caspian Sea in the Central Asia and moving across the Afghanistan-Pakistan region - had almost receded from the region and the weather would mainly remain dry in the next few days.
