Himachal sees cloudy skies with chances of snow

Shimla, Jan 2 (IANS) Hill stations of Himachal Pradesh on Thursday experienced partially cloudy skies with temperatures close to the freezing point at several places and chances of snow, a weather official said.

"Light to moderate snowfall is likely to occur at many places as western disturbances are active with significant fall in day temperatures," Manmohan Singh, Director of the Met office here, told IANS.

The probability of snowfall in Shimla, Kufri, Narkanda, Manali, Kalpa and Dalhousie is high.

He said that western disturbances would decrease significantly on January 4 and there would be fall in minimum temperatures.

The Met office says another western disturbance is likely to hit the state from January 6 to 8.

The western disturbance is a storm system originating from the Caspian Sea and moving across the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

The state capital on Thursday saw a low of 1.7 degrees Celsius, while it was minus 1.4 degrees in tourist resort Manali.

The night temperature in Keylong, the headquarters of Lahaul and Spiti, was minus 11 degrees Celsius, in Kalpa in Kinnaur district it was minus 3.8 degrees, Dharamsala town recorded 2.2 degrees and it was 1.7 degrees in Dalhousie.