It’s more than just snow tourism

If you have to pay more for flour, potatoes and sugar in 2025, you can blame it on climate change. Crop yield and the quality of crops, including apples, is likely to be affected by seemingly unrelated events like delayed snowfall and inadequate rainfall. The focus, however, has generally been on how these weather events affect winter tourism and availability of drinking water in the hills.

Delayed snowfall in the upper reaches of Himachal Pradesh is becoming a recurring feature. A decade ago, the first snow would start falling in Dharamshala by the end of November. Over the past two years, this occurrence has shifted to late December-early January. The days preceding Christmas saw the first snowfall in Kullu-Manali, Kinnaur and Lahaul Spiti.

In Shimla, the day temperature hovered between 13 and 16 degree Celsius in the last week of 2024. Delayed and sparse though it was, the snowfall brought belated relief to Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand after a long dry spell. Desperate entrepreneurs, worried about significant drops in tourist footfalls, installed machines that created artificial snow at select locations on the Manali–Leh highway. This ersatz environment had the desired effect, as per media reports, with enthusiasts being able to skate even in the absence of natural snowfall.

Artificial snowfall, however, is as dangerous as artificial rain. China has been experimenting with artificial snowfall in the Himalayan areas. Experts suspect that several flash floods in the border areas of India were a direct fallout of these experiments on the Chinese side. Some media reports claimed the Assam government had lodged a complaint about this in 2020.

In 2025, it is estimated that China has built a capacity to cause artificial rain and snowfall in an area of up to 5.5 million square kilometres. It is difficult to even imagine what kind of havoc this may unleash in Tibet, India and Bangladesh.

When temperatures rise due to late snowfall, it can cause sudden GLOF (glacial lake outburst flood). Several such incidents in the past have swept away houses, orchards and cattle, causing loss of lives and property. If the glaciers melt, hundreds of hydropower projects that dot the hill states may also be at risk.

Snow on the mountains also impacts the rivers of Punjab. Due to the prolonged dry spell, the water level of the Jhelum and other rivers has receded. In Pauri district of Uttarakhand, moisture levels in the soil have declined sharply due to lack of snowfall and rain for the last four months.

Dry spells also increase the risk of forest fires which are mitigated to a large extent by normal snowfall. Research shows that the speed of snowmelt in the Himalayas and its glaciers increased two- to three-fold between 1985 and 2000, pointed out Prof. Sunil Nautiyal of the G.B. Pant National Himalayan Environment Institute, Almora.

While the rapid melting of glaciers leads to a sudden increase in the water level of rivers, insufficient rain and meagre snowfall leads to water levels dropping equally fast. This often creates a drinking water crisis, while water for irrigation becomes scarce as early as February.

The delay in rain and snowfall in the upper reaches of Uttarakhand threatens wildlife as well. Herbivores tend to move towards human settlements, and carnivores like leopards and panthers follow in their wake.

With the erosion of grasslands, musk deer have become scarce and snow leopards are rarely spotted now from Lahaul Spiti in Himachal Pradesh to Uttarkashi, Tehri, Rudraprayag, Chamoli, Pithoragarh and Bageshwar in Uttarakhand.

According to the meteorological department, Uttarakhand received 90 per cent less rainfall than normal between October and November 2024. Most of the districts in the state went through a dry spell with the exception of Pithoragarh and Bageshwar districts. Himachal Pradesh also recorded 97 per cent less rainfall than normal.

By year-end, though, heavy snowfall brought an end to the spell, repeating a cycle that has become familiar over the past few years. Apple orchards are adversely affected by delayed snowfall because apple plants require 800 to 1,600 ‘chilling hours’, according to an advisory issued by the Regional Horticulture Research and Training Centre in Mashobra, Himachal Pradesh. As per the advisory, the temperature should ideally remain below seven degree Celsius during the chilling hours. Insufficient chilling leads to illformed fruits and poorer yields.

Changes in climate up in the hills also impact the plains. Rabi crops like wheat, mustard and gram—which are sown between October and December in northern and central India—need cooler weather during the period when they grow and ripen. Delayed rainfall has been bad for rabi crops, especially wheat, and people are bracing for flour prices to rise in the new year. Winter rains not only fulfil the requirement of water, they also fertilise the fields, helping the plants receive nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrients naturally.

Poor rabi crops will dampen the economy and affect the food supply chain across the country. And that’s not all.

Due to October– November being warmer than usual, the germination of potatoes has also been badly affected. In many places, potato seeds were spoilt in the heat and failed to grow. A warm November leached the sweetness of sugarcane crops in western Uttar Pradesh. Cold weather is necessary for the formation of sucrose in sugarcane, but up until the end of the year (2024), sugarcane plants had more water in them, making them unsuitable for jaggery.

The making of jaggery began a whole month late and then had to be stopped due to rain. Such fluctuations in weather patterns have affected farming in several parts of the country. To make matters worse, farmers are also worried about fertilizers and seeds.

Snow cover in the high mountains usually acts as insulation. A blanket of snow protects the crops, promotes the growth of tubers and roots and prevents damage by frost. Snow also prevents soil erosion. Reduced snowfall and erratic rainfall is therefore likely to have an adverse ecological impact across the Himalayan region, including on water and agroforestry.

The Himalayas are more than just a tourist attraction. Snow in the higher reaches of these mountains is a natural source of water and critical for the preservation of the region’s biodiversity. There is an urgent need for Himalayan states to make both short- and long-term action plans at the local level to deal with climate change and global warming. And it is essential that these plans include the participation of local people and traditional knowledge.