No fresh snow for Himachal on Christmas eve

Shimla, Dec 24 (IANS) Hill stations in Himachal Pradesh will miss a date with snow on Christmas eve this time as most of the popular tourist destinations on Wednesday experienced a bright and sunny day albeit with bone-chilling cold.

Shimla’s meteorological director Manmohan Singh told IANS that popular tourist destinations like Shimla, Kasauli, Narkanda, Dharamsala, Palampur, Manali, Chamba and Dalhousie would experience sunny days till Dec 29.

But destinations like Shimla, Kufri, Narkanda, Manali and Kalpa still have good amount of snow cover due to earlier heavy snow.

Christmas snows have been eluding Shimla — known for the imperial grandeur of buildings that were once institutions of power when it used to be the summer capital of British India — since 1991 when heavy snowfall occurred on Christmas eve.

In 1991, a 49-cm thick cover of snow enveloped Shimla on Christmas eve.

Meanwhile, Keylong in Lahaul-Spiti district was the coldest place in the state on Wednesday at minus 8.6 degrees Celsius. It was 5.4 degrees in Dharamsala, minus 2.2 degrees in Kalpa and minus 3.4 degrees in Manali.

The state capital recorded a low of 2.3 degrees.