Despite snow having deserted the Queen of Hill — Shimla on Christmas, there is hope for tourists and local residents of a White New Year. Snowfall is likely on New Year, which would boost the morale of local businessman and tourism industry which eagerly awaits snow for increase in the traffic of tourists.
According to the forecast of meteorological centre, Shimla, high hills of Himachal Pradesh is likely to get snowfall at isolated places on January 1 while on December 31 snowfall is likely at few places. In maximum probability snowfall is likely on January 1.
People were waiting eagerly to see the snowfall on Christmas after the first spell of snow this season on the night of December 21. With no snow during Christmas, the turnout of tourists to the State capital was low and worry lines were drawn for tourism industry.
Director Manmohan Singh of meteorological centre, Shimla said that as per the forecast snowfall is likely on New Year. “This is due to the upper air cyclonic circulation in Western Disturbances (WD) which is likely to hit the State since December 30,” said Singh. Currently Shimla is seeing bright sunshine during the day time but in morning and evening the temperature dips sharply sub-zero level due to the cold breeze blowing across the hills.
The maximum temperature recorded in the past 24 hours on Saturday was 11°C and the minimum temperature recorded was 1.7°C. On Friday the minimum temperature was 0.2°C.
Hotel industry, ecstatic over the weather forecast, is expecting large number of tourists in the State. “Normally after December 24 to January 1, tourist inflow is maximum but this time due to no White Christmas, tourist inflow was very less but as New Year is approaching, hotel occupancy is increasing,” said Shyam Sunder, a hotelier.
Some hotels are also planning to offer package stay in their hotels to the tourists and offering three-day packages from December 30 onwards.
Other tourist destinations of the State like Manali and Dalhousie are witnessing severe cold wave conditions and minimum temperature is still at sub-zero level with minus 3.2°C at Manali and minus 0.1°C at Dalhousie.