The weather office in Shimla today (Jan 14, 2012) issued warning of heavy snowfall across Himachal Pradesh.
Director of Met office, Manmohan Singh said that heavy to very heavy snowfall is likely to occur at isolated places in the higher hills. Heavy rainfall is likely in mid-hills and hailstorms in lower hills during the next 48 hours. Singh said the western disturbance as an upper air system with its centre over North Pakistan and East Afghanistan will affect the state from Saturday evening onward.
The weather office’s prediction comes at a time when the normalcy is yet to be restored in the hill state after last week snowfall. Snow is yet to be cleared on Shimla roads. The Mall and Ridge have turned into ice rink and scores of people have been injured due to fall on hard ice.
Traffic has been restored on NH22 but scores of link roads are yet to be cleared. On Friday 15 people were killed near Chopal in Shimla district as a state transport bus met with an accident on snow covered road.
Cold wave prevailed in the state as icy winds continued to sweep the region. Keylong in tribal Lahaul and Spiti district was coldest in the region at minus 12.7 Celsius followed by Kalpa at minus 6 C, Manali minus 4.2 C, Solan minus 0.2 C, Dharamsala and Shimla recorded 3.1 C. The high altitude tribal areas reeled under biting cold wave with the minimum temperatures ranging between minus 17 and minus 28 deg C. As per reports lakes and rivulets were frozen in higher altitude areas of the state.
