With the temperatures falling to around five degree Celsius, another winter season is getting a warm welcome at Munnar.
The lowest temperature of so far this season was recorded last Sunday when the mercury slipped down to 6 degree Celsius at Mattupetty, Nallathanni, and Chokkanad while the remote tea plantation areas of Gundumalai , Thenmala, Chenduvarai, and Lakshmi it went down 4 degree Celsius.
The increase in the lowest temperature level on Tuesday was a result of the depression in the Bay of Bengal. For a week, the temperature has been slowly falling, as per the weather data available at different stations in Munnar.
There has been an increase in visitors to Munnar, especially on weekends, since the destination has been reopened. As per insights shared by tourism stakeholders, visitors to Munnar mostly prefer one-day trips and tend to return the same day. The number of visitors from Tamil Nadu has also gone up considerably which gives a positive sign those interstate travelers to have started arriving in Munnar.
Usually, winter is the busiest season in Munnar and the tourists reach there from December to February. An official of the District Tourism Promotion Council at Munnar said “The mercury dips to the lowest during the first week of January and many visitors prefer to visit Munnar when there is light to moderate snowfall”. As per him the majority of the visitors currently were from north Kerala, in addition to those from neighboring states Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The tourists now prefer short stays and some of the hotels are touching an occupancy of 50%, he added. With the frost blanket covering the tea plantations, more and more people would start visiting, he said.
Normally Munnar used to experience the lowest temperature in the first or second week of January. However, in 2019, the sub-zero temperature was recorded in February and also in the first week of March.
The Rajamalai national park officials also confirmed that there was a clear sign of tourism returning to normalcy in Munnar. As per their sources, nearly 1,500 people visited Rajamalai National Park over the weekends which is a definite sign of improvement.
With the temperatures falling to around five degree Celsius, another winter season is getting a warm welcome at Munnar.
