From correspondents in Delhi, India, 10:34 PM IST

Many places in India's northern and eastern regions received rain for the fourth consecutive day Tuesday while it snowed in hilly areas at the fag end of winter, bringing cheers from some even as those in cities like Delhi awaited return of sunny days.

In the national capital, there was a spell of heavy showers in the morning that caught citizens, mainly school students and office-goers, unawares amid long traffic snarls.

The city that had received 27.5 mm rain since Monday felt a little colder with mercury sliding to a minimum of 11.2 degrees Celsius, three degrees lower than Monday. Weathermen forecast that the night temperature would hover around 10 degrees.

Since the last four days, Delhi had recorded a maximum of 74 mm of rainfall, far above around 30 mm that it receives normally in the entire month.

'The low atmospheric pressure the main reason of the rain, has moved towards east and the effect was seen clearly in that part of the country,' said an India Meteorological Department (IMD) official.

'The weather condition is unlikely to improve till Wednesday evening. Both northern and eastern India would experience intermittent rainfall with a few spell of heavy showers coupled with thunderstorm and squalls,' he added.

In the eastern region, Dibrugarh in Assam received 22 mm of rain since Monday, Jamshedpur and Ranchi in Jharkhand 18 mm and 16 mm respectively, Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh 10 mm and Pendra in Chhattisgarh 39mm rainfall. Kolkata too received 15mm of rain during the period.

In northern India, Ganganagar in Rajasthan received 21 mm rainfall, Amritsar in Punjab 7 mm, Hissar in Haryana 18 mm, Jammu in Jammu and Kashmir 6mm and Shimla in Himachal Pradesh 7 mm.

The snow in the hills of Himachal Pradesh began over the weekend and intermittent spells continued Tuesday in many places. Shimla was under deep snow after it received the heaviest spell of snowfall for February Sunday since 1990.

Farmers as well as those in the tourism sector in the state welcomed the late snowfall.

After a light spell of snow in early December, most resorts in the state were deserted due to lack of snowfall.

Hotel occupancy rates in Shimla rose sharply, as the Kalka-Shimla highway remained open for vehicular traffic.

'The snow is a saviour for the apple and stone fruit orchards as the plants were in dire need of moisture for the last couple of months,' said Lekh Raj Chauhan, president of the state fruit and vegetable growers' association.

Snow is considered like natural manure for apple cultivation. A poor winter last year resulted in a huge drop in apple cultivation to less than half to 265,000 tonnes from 540,000 tonnes two years ago.

However, farmers in Kashmir were not as happy as their counterparts in Himachal. They said while there was rain and snowfall in northern Kashmir, the plains did not receive much of it.

'This was a warm and dry winter. The crops are certainly going to be affected by it. I keep my fingers crossed. Spring is the only hope now to bring rains,' said Muhammad Akbar, a farmer in Ganderbal.

In Delhi, the incessant drizzle over the past two days set up the right ambience for youngsters ahead of the Valentine's Day even as office-goers experienced inconvenience.

Most school buses went empty Tuesday morning with parents deciding against sending their children to school following heavy downpour since daybreak.

Sahil Sachdev, an IT professional, took nearly double the time to reach his office with the traffic moving at a snail's pace. Anjana, a professional, said: 'I had to go back home to change since a car splashed water all over me.'

(Staff Writer, © IANS)