Sun fails to thaw frozen Manali

MANALI: The tourist town woke up on Friday to a thick layer of snow that had buried and hidden everything that was exposed to air. Despite the day being a sunny one, the temperature was bone chilling and vegetation was covered with a thin layer of snow that had soon turned into ice.
The town and most parts of upper Kullu experienced blizzards till late evening on Thursday but suddenly moon came out and stars started to glitter in the night.This sudden change in weather worked like a huge refrigerator converting everything into ice. With freezing of all water sources, including water pipelines, people couldn’t get water for bathing and cooking purpose till afternoon. Flowers, trees, grass, farms, roads and everything under open sky was covered with a layer of frost.
Night temperature in Manali had dropped to minus 6.6 degrees Celsius while maximum day temperature was recorded at only 1.6 degrees Celsius. Surrounded by thick layer of snow, Keylong in Lahaul-Spiti district recorded minimum temperature of minus 14.2 degrees Celsius and day temperature was 3.8 degrees Celsius. Minimum and maximum temperature in state capital Shimla was recorded at minus 0.7 degrees Celsius and 6.4 degrees Celsius respectively.
“We poured hot water over the frozen pipes to get water but it did not work. It was for sure the most intense frost of the season,” a resident Ramesh Kanwar said. The frost was melted with sunrays in daytime but situations did not change where sunrays could not reach. The water sources again started freezing on Friday evening soon after the sunset.
Traffic in Manali town, Manali-Solang Highway, Vashisht, Hadimba temples and most of the roads beyond Manali was moving at snail’s pace as vehicles started slipping on the ice. “It took more than an hour to cover distance of 3 km from Manali police station to Old Manali as road has turned slippery due to ice sheet. At many places I had to take help from passerby to push my car as there was zero friction between road and tyres,” said a shopkeeper Manoj Mahant.
According to Shimla meteorological centre, minimum temperature decreased by 3 to 4 degrees Celsius and maximum temperature decreased by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius in last 24 hours. “A fresh western disturbance would bring more snowfall to mid and high hills of the western Himalayan regions from Saturday night.”