Residents of Shimla and Manali woke up to a white blanket of snow on Wednesday morning. In Shimla, snowfall resumed towards late afternoon and by evening the city had recorded 30cm of snow. The minimum temperature plummeted to -1.6 degrees Celsius while the day was overcast and chilly with a maximum temperature of 4.6 degrees.
"I haven't seen so much snow in the month of February in Shimla," Nishant Nag, a 35-year-old hotel owner told TOI. This was just the fifth time since 2000 that the city had seen snow in February.
In Manali, thousands of tourists enjoyed the snow but school-going children and commuters faced problems with vehicular traffic coming to a halt.
Heavy snowfall was also reported from the higher reaches of Garhwal and Kumaon. The minimum temperature dropped to 2 to 3 degree Celsius in tarai towns such as Dehradun, Haridwar, Roorkee, Haldwani and Udham Singh Nagar.
A report reaching the Uttarakhand Disaster Management Department said the Dehradun-Yamnotri and Rishikesh-Gangotri yatra routes were blocked at different spots due to snow.
Weather experts in Dehradun said the cold could persist and even intensify in the next couple of days.
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