Shimla: As the incessant snowfall from the past couple of days, has thrown normal life out of gear in Shimla, the mercury dipped to -3.7 degrees Celsius, the lowest for the season on Thursday.
Apart from Shimla, other areas like Kangra, Kullu, Sirmaur, Shimla, Kinnaur, Lahaul-Spiti, Chamba and Mandi were also blanketed by snow in the morning.
As the temperature dip to sub-zero levels, a thick blanket of snow on road has caused traffic snarls at various major junctions of the city.
“Due to snowfall over 735 roads including five national highways were shut in the morning. Not only that, in as many as electricity supply in 3,131 houses were disrupted. The problem is likely to aggravate in the future as the temperature is plunging which will freeze the water pipelines,” said Preetam Singh Thakur a local.
Also, many tourists were stranded for hours on the highways on their way back home from the winter vacations in the white wonderland.
“Vehicles are covered in snow. The tourists are also not able to move out of the hotels even if they are willing to go back to their respective hometowns,” Thakur added.
According to the India Meteorological Department, in the past 24 hours, Keylong in Lahaul-Spiti district recorded the lowest minimum temperature of -14.6 degrees Celsius, Kalpa of Kinnaur district recorded -9.1 degrees Celsius, Manali recorded -7.8 degrees Celsius, Dalhousie recorded -5.6 degrees Celsius, Kufri recorded at -5.2 degrees Celsius.
Also, Solan recorded -0.8 degrees Celsius and Dharamshala recorded a minimum temperature of 1.6-degrees Celsius.