HP: Dhauladhar foothills receive season's first snowfall

The foothills of the Dhauladhar mountain ranges in Himachal Pradesh today received the season's first snowfall, while rain lashed several other areas of the state, bringing the mercury down, officials said today.
The Dhauladhar mountain ranges received mild snowfall this afternoon, bringing the day temperature in Dharamsala down to around 2 degrees Celsius.
Experts said that the start of snowfall in the higher reaches of the foothills of the Himalayas was an indication of the departure of the Northwest Monsoon.
The MeT office has predicted rains and thunderstorms in the mid and lower hills, and rains and snow in higher hills over the next six days.

Chief minister Virbhadra Singh, who was supposed to fly to Delhi today from Haripurdhar in Simaur district, could not take off as the helicopter could not land due to heavy rains, officials said.
Scattered rains occurred at several places with Shimla receiving 31 millimetre of rainfall in the past 24 hours, while Jubbarhatti was the wettest in the region with 36 mm of rain. Sarkaghat, Dharamshala, Mashobra received 24, 22 and 20 mm of rain respectively. The other regions which received rainfall were Pachhad (19mm), Rajgarh and Jhanjehli (18mm), Jubbal, Sarahan, Gohar and Baijnath (14mm).
The night temperatures dipped marginally in several places with Keylong, Manali and Kalpa recording a low of 9.1, 9.6 and 10 degrees Celsius respectively. It followed by Shimla (14.9), Mandi (15.2) and Dharamshala (16.2).

The maximum temperatures also showed a downward trend with Una being the hottest in the region with a high of 34.3 degrees Celsius, followed by Sundernagar (31), Bhuntar (29), Nahan (27.8) and Solan (27).