Weather trends worrying, hint at beginning of the end of snowfall in Shimla
In the winter of 1990-91, Shimla received 239 cm of snowfall. In the five winters of the current decade, the city has received just around 250 cm of snowfall, indicating a diminishing trend of snowfall in and around Shimla.
More worryingly, the city has gone without a significant spell of snowfall in the past three winters, including the current one. From the winter of 2022-23 to the current winter, the city has barely received around 25 cm of snowfall.
It’s extremely worrying as the city has never seen three consecutive dry winters over the past 35 years. No one knows whether it is merely an aberration in the weather cycle or the beginning of the end of snowfall in Shimla.
Weather officials are also concerned about the dwindling snowfall in Shimla and the surrounding areas. “The data shows that snowfall in Shimla has been on the decline over the past few decades. Broadly, it could be attributed to global warming, growing number of vehicles on the road and rapid urbanisation,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, Director, Shimla Meteorological Centre.
In the last decade of the last century, from 1991 to 2000, the city had received a total of 1,332 cm of snowfall, which means an average snowfall of 133 cm per year.
In the past decade, from 2011-2020, the city received 809 cm of snowfall, an average of 80 cm per year. In the first five winters of the current decade, the average snowfall per year has slipped down further to just around 50 cm.
This number could have been much worse had the city not received 161 cm of snowfall in 2021-22. It was the highest snowfall in the city since 2001-02, when it had recorded 186.7 cm of snowfall. The abundant snowfall in 2021-22 could have happened due to the Covid-induced lockdowns in and outside the country, which brought down carbon emissions to a large extent.
Apart from the declining snowfall, the snowfall period has also reduced over the years. In 1991-2000, snowfall had been recorded in the month of November and March as well. While November has not seen snowfall since many years now, snowfall was last recorded in March in 2019-20. Now, the snowfall is becoming increasingly uncommon even in December. “The temperatures are higher in December now, so the instances of snowfall in this month are getting less as compared to the earlier times,” said Srivastava.
According to the weather officials, local factors such as increasing number of vehicles and urbanisation could also be warming up the atmosphere. While the city has turned into a concrete jungle, more than one lakh new vehicles hit the road every year in the state. “Add to it the high volume of tourist vehicles that come to the state round the year,” said Srivastava. Besides, the practice of burning of orchard waste by apple growers in winters could be the other factor behind the missing snowfall in the apple belts of Shimla over the past three years.
