Heavy snowfall brought New Year’s cheer to Kashmir Valley, Himachal Pradesh and higher reaches of Uttarakhand, while rainfall elsewhere added to the chill on the last day of 2013 as the cold wave kept up its intensity in northern India.

On the eve of New Year 2014, Uttarakhand experienced light to moderate rains at isolated places in plains and snowfall in higher reaches. Areas in higher altitudes like Tapovan, Malari, Joshimath, Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, Kailash Mansarovar route, Auli, Nainital, Munsiyari and other polices received light to moderate snowfall.

The weather gods did not disappoint tourists thronging to the higher reaches of J&K and Himachal Pradesh with the hopes of ringing in a 'White New Year', but the heavy snowfall severely affected communications and traffic movement.

Kashmir was cut off from the rest of the country as heavy snowfall forced closure of several roads, including the arterial Srinagar-Jammu national highway, and led to the cancellation of all flights into and out of the city.

The snowfall brought about a jump in the mercury with Srinagar witnessing a nearly four degree rise in the minimum which settled at -1.4 degrees Celsius in the city, up from the -5.3 degrees recorded yesterday.

Although the weather in ladakh remained dry, the minimum there rose by several degrees with leh town seeing a low of -12.0 degrees, as against the -17.7 degrees recorded there the previous night.

The hills and valleys of Himachal Pradesh groaned under the biting cold amidst another spell of snowfall and widespread rain in the state.

Icy, strong velocity winds accompanied by rainfall and snow lashed Narkanda, Sarahan and other areas in the upper Shimla region with the Hindustan-Tibet National Highway blocked beyond Matiana as a result of fresh deposits.

Keylong and Kalpa in the lahaul and Spiti and Kinnaur districts, respectively, experienced moderate to heavy snowfall with the sky remaining largely overcast.

light to moderate rainfall also hit several places across Punjab and Haryana, leaving both states reeling under the chilly conditions.

Among the places which received rainfall were the Union Territory of Chandigarh, Amritsar, ludhiana, Pathankot, Phagwara, Jalandhar, Ambala, Panchkula, Sonepat and Karnal.

Narnaul in Haryana registered a low of 0.5 degrees while Hisar shivered at 1.5 degrees.

In Punjab, ludhiana and Amritsar saw the mercury settle at lows of 1.6 and 1.8 degrees, respectively. Western parts of Rajasthan continued to be in the grip of the intense cold with Jaisalmer recording the lowest minimum in the state at 1.7 degrees.