Cold wave intensifies in HP, thick fog engulfs towns

The cold wave sweeping several parts of Himachal Pradesh further intensified following moderate snowfall in high mountain ranges and passes in the state, MeT department officials said today.
Moderate snowfall at Rohtang, Kunzam and Saach passes; at the Dhauladhar range; higher areas of tribal belts and Kullu district caused minimum temperatures to drop by three to five degrees, officials said.
High altitude tribal areas reeled under piercing cold wave conditions as mercury stayed betweenminus six and minus 10 degree Celsius, they said.
Keylong and Kalpa recorded minus 4 degrees Celsius and 1 degree Celsius respectively, two degrees below normal while thick fog engulfed towns along rivers reducing visibility to a few meters.

Thick ground frost occurred in higher hills, official said.
Bhuntar recorded minimum temperature at 2.8 degrees Celsius while Solan and Sundernagar shivered at 5 degrees Celsius, followed by Shimla (5.9).

Meanwhile Una and Palampur recorded 7.5 degrees Celsius each, and Dharamsala and Nahan 11.5 each.
The maximum day temperatures also dropped marginally and Una was hottest with a high of 27.2 degrees Celsius Sundernagar and Nahan recorded 22.3 and 21.1 degrees Celsius respectively.
Solan recorded 20.5 degrees Celsius, Dharamsala (19.6), Bhuntar (19.0), Shimla (15.7) and Kalpa (10.6).
The local MeT office has predicted dry weather in the region over next six days fromtomorrow.