Exceptionally cold weather has gripped the Russian city of St. Petersburg this week.
Monday morning’s low of almost -21C (-5.8F) broke a daily benchmark set some 128 years ago, way back in 1893, according to meteorologist Mikhail Leus from the Fobos weather center.
“Today, St. Petersburg set a new daily cold weather record. Temperatures in the Northern Capital fell to minus 20.9 degrees, which is 0.4 degrees lower than on the same day back in 1893,” Leus wrote in a Facebook post.
... As reported by hmn.ru, an already snowy St. Petersburg received further dumpings of global warming goodness over the weekend, and by Monday, the snow depth had grown to a staggering 61cm (2ft) in the north of the city.
Shifting attention to Eastern Russia, record-breaking cold is also persisting here.
... Temperatures in the cities of Oymyakon and Delyankir, for example, have continued to hold below -50C (-58F), which is unusually cold, even for them — a preliminary -56.6C (-69.9F) was set in Delyankir yesterday:
The most recent record-breaker, however, occurred at “Jubilee” (a Google mis-translation?) where on Sunday, December 5, “the cold increased to -48.7C (-55.7F),” continues the hmn.ru report — a reading that broke the locale’s previous record (from 1984) of -48.5C (-55.3F).
Sweden Breaks All-Time December Low (-46.8F)
Scandinavia has been holding exceptionally cold in recent weeks — as I reported last month, the small tourist town of Nattavaara –327m (1,073ft) above sea level– registered -37.4C (-35.3F) on Nov 29
— this reading was not only a record for the station, or for Sweden, but it was Scandinavia’s coldest November temperature since 1980.
Since then, the mercury across Scandia has continued to fall, and on Monday, December 5, temperatures below the freezing mark were registered across ALL of Sweden.
The remote settlement of Naimakka took the top spot, though:
“At noon it was down to -42.7C (-44.9F),” said Emma Härenstam, a meteorologist at Sweden’s national weather agency (SMHI).
But as the day went on, temperatures continued down and bottomed-out at an astonishing -43.8C (-46.8F) — this was Naimakka’s coldest December temperature in recorded history, and also Sweden’s lowest reading so early in the season since 1945. ...
It was also the country’s lowest December temp since 1986 ...
Bethel, Alaska Suffered Its Coldest November in 82 Years
... the Southwest Alaska hub suffered its coldest November in more than 80 years, and its second coldest in weather books dating back more than a century:
With an average temperature of just -17.4C (0.7F), to find a colder November in Bethel, “you have to go all the way back to 1939,” said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, when an average of -17.7C (0.1F) was logged:
The deep cold is causing problems around town, reports alaskapublic.org.
It’s the kind of cold that feels like it slaps you across the face.
It freezes barges in their tracks. It makes pipes burst open.
... This winter could pan out to be a cold one, in part because of historically early sea ice building in the Arctic, particularly in the Bering Sea, “which is a thumb on the scale to tell us to tilt us to colder winters,”
... “the Climate Prediction Center, operated by the NWS, is forecasting increased chances for significantly below normal temperatures for this upcoming winter.”