Shimla’s first snow fall of the season

Shimla:Sunday morning showered a welcome surprise for inhabitants of Shimla people, as they woke up from their beds to see a white blanket of snow covering their surroundings. The popular hill station received the first snowfall of the season on Sunday morning, while mild rain showers accompanied by light snow flakes continued hitting ground at regular intervals, till late in the evening.

Ashish Pandey

The erstwhile capital of British India recorded 6 cm of snow in the morning, pushing down mercury by several notches from the normal, to 3 degree Celsius, as per meteorological department of the state.

Even other tourist destinations of Himachal including Manali, Kufri, Chail, and Narkanda received moderate snow in the early hours of the morning.

After a very long gap has Shimla received snow in the month of December and this will surely provide a major boost up to the winter tourism here, as per hoteliers of the city.

“I arrived in the city yesterday morning along with my wife, without any anticipation of snowfall. It’s for the first time I am watching snow in real and the feeling can’t be expressed in mere words,” excited Manoj Sharma from Delhi said.

Despite Shimla roads getting covered under a snow cover, the traffic didn’t face any interruption. However, some parts of the city did face brief power cuts in the morning and afternoon hours.

Season’s first snowfall has brought cheers to the faces of apple growers of the state too as plummet in temperature is considered good for fruit trees which require an exposure of certain minimum number of chilling hours, so as to produce good quality apple.

The city hotels are already running at high level of occupancy and with the prospect of sky remaining overcast in the coming days, as per weather officials, and the festival of Christmas approaching, a huge rush of tourists will hit Shimla in the next few days.