Uttarakhand used to be a state receiving considerable snowfall in the winter season, but for some years now there has been a decrease in both rainfall and snowfall during the winters. As per the State Meteorological centre, the reason behind the decline of snowfall is most likely the effect of global warming.
Talking to The Pioneer, the director of State Meteorological Centre, Bikram Singh said, “It is true that the snowfall has decreased in recent years. There were times in the past when even Rajpur near Dehradun used to get a decent snowfall. But we cannot say that the snowfall has totally stopped as some areas in the range of 2000 metres altitude like Nanital, Pauri, Mukteshwar and others do receive good snowfall. The activity is less now but still some places in the state receive good snowfall.”
Singh further gave examples of Mukteshwar for less snowfall during winters. He said that in the year 2014 the place received good snowfall for 12 days mainly in the months of December, January, February and March. Then in 2015 the place received snowfall only on two days which was in the month of January. Then for the next two years 2016 and 2017 there was nil snowfall. In 2018, Mukteshwar received snowfall on only one day which was in the month of December.”
When asked about the reason behind the less snow he said, “The major cause of reduction of snowfall activity can be global warming. Also, the best time for snowfall is in the mid-January or in the initial weeks of February. This season, some areas like Mussoorie and Chopta have received snowfall in the month of December. So the activity is less but even then some areas still receive good snowfall.”
Adding more information to this he said, “As per our prediction snowfall or rainfall will likely strike the state in the middle of the current month.”
So far, the State Meteorological centre was able to record the snowfall only in one area of the state- Mukteshwar. The lack of automatic snow gauge became a barrier in recording snowfall in many major areas of the state. “The reason behind the lack of data in other regions is that we had a limited number of automatic snow gauges. The one working from many years is in Mukteshwar. The good news is after the state government passed the proposal of setting automatic snow gauges (ASG) in different regions of the state; we have 15 ASG installed which are all set to record snowfall in various areas in the future. These ASG’s will help to give accurate data of the snowfall,” Singh added
The 15 places having ASG’s are Bharsar, Dhanaulti, Kausani, Chakrata, Harshil, Auli, Rudraprayag, Chopta, Ghagariya (Chamoli), Munsiyari, Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, Yamunotri and Mussoorie.
