Cold wave intensifies as mercury dip in Himachal

The intense cold wave sweeping the tribal areas and other higher hills of Himachal Praesh further tightened its grip as mercury dropped by few notches and stayed below freezing point in most of the places.
While the mercury ranged between minus 5 to minus 8 degree Celsius in high altitude areas it stayed at minus 2.8 deg and 1 deg at Keylong and Kalpa in tribal Lahaul and Spiti and Kinnaur district while the minimum temperature slided to 2 deg at Manali, 5 deg at Solan and 5.5 deg at Bhuntar, 3 deg below normal.
Sundernagar recorded a low of 6.4 deg while Shimla and Palampur recorded minimum temperature at 7.5 deg, 7.4 deg followed by Una 9 deg and Nahan 9.8 deg C.

The natural sources of water like lakes, rivulets,springs and tributaries of rivers have started freezing causing reduction in discharge of water in the snow-fed rivers and affecting hydropower generation.
Una was hottest in the region with maximum temperature at 27.6 deg while Dharamsala, Sundernagar and Bhuntar recorded a low of 25.4 deg, 25.3 deg and 25.2 deg, followed by Solan 23.5 deg, Nahan 21.3 deg, Shimla 18.4 deg and Kalpa 15.2 deg C.
The local MeT office has predicted dry weather in the northern region with no relief from cold wave over next two days.