How Can Siberia Be 90 Degrees This Week?

Your mental image of Siberia is probably a snowy, wind-whipped expanse, perhaps with a cluster of buildings to house those banished from Russian society. Not this week. This week, Norilsk, the northernmost large city in the world, the second largest city north of the Arctic Circle, and the site of one of those gulags, hit a balmy 32 degrees Celsius — about 90 Fahrenheit. It’s normally in the mid-60s.

The average temperature in July is 13.6 but the mercury was touching 32C, a long way from the coldest-ever recorded temperature of minus 61C.

The previous hottest was 31.9C, more than three decades ago.

‘I’ve never worn a bikini before in Norilsk, just to top up my tan’, said Polina, 21, a student.

The extraordinary and perhaps unprecedented heat wave continues in the central arctic region of Russia. Some locations have now endured 10 consecutive days above 30°C (86°F). Wildfires are erupting in the taiga forests …
The prolonged heat wave is the result of an amazingly intense and prolonged heat dome that has centered itself over north central Siberia.

Source: The Atlantic Wire