A men walks on a snow-clad hill on the outskirts of Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, yesterday. Kashmir valley witnessed moderate to heavy snowfall, ending a spell of cold wave that continued for more than a month.
Shimla: Popular tourist resorts Shimla, Manali, Dalhousie and their surroundings received the season’s first snowfall yesterday, while the lower hills across Himachal Pradesh were lashed by rains, pushing the mercury down by several notches, the weather office here said.
Hoteliers cheered up 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, 250 km from the state capital, also received snowfall, the weather office here said.
The minimum temperature in Manali was 1.2 degrees below the freezing point. The town received 18 cm 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 42.6 mm 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 6 cm of snow, while Salooni in Chamba district got 19 cm 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 three to four days, the Met Office said.
IANS
