MAIN WEATHER AND CLIMATE TRAITS IN THE NORTHEN HEMISPHERE AS OF FEBRUARY 2023
Air temperature
In the first decade of February, the air temperatures in the north of the Urals and of the ETR were noticeably higher than normal. The decade-averaged temperature anomalies on the coast of the Kara Sea were as high as +8-11°* or more. The temperature background in the rest of the country either fluctuated around the normal value, or was sub-normal. Negative anomalies reached two or more degrees in the Crimea or the Krasnodar Territory in the south, and were -4…-6° or lower in Yakutia and in the Far East. In the Amur region, frosts reached -40° sometimes, while in Sakhalin, new daily minima as low as -35° were set. An interesting picture was observed in the Crimea: frosts were so hard that the Uchan-Su waterfall on the southern slope of the Mount Ai-Petri froze, and its entire water stream a hundred metres high turned into an ice rock.
The temperature distribution in the second decade was similar. Very cold weather in Yakutia and Chukotka resulted in new daily temperature minima down to -50…-55°, and warm weather survived in the same areas as in the first decade, in particular, leading to new daily maxima of air temperature on the coast of the Kara Sea.
But in the third decade, the weather changed quite noticeably: it remained cold in the north-east of the country only. There, the decade-averaged anomalies were -3…-5°, i.e., roughly the same as in the north of the ETR where the cold replaced the warmth of the previous February days. The rest of the Russian territory became an oasis of warmth extending from the Crimea to Primorye, featuring the decade-averaged temperature anomalies of 3-10° and producing new daily maxima recorded therein.
As a result, the monthly-averaged temperature in most of the country was 2-8° higher than normal. The weather noticeably colder than usual was observed in the east of Yakutia and in most of the Far East only (with anomalies of -2…-4°); in addition, the North Caucasus was the area of weak negative anomalies. The average temperature in February entered the top ten of most highly ranked values in the Urals only, and was outside this list in other federal districts as well as in Russia as a whole.
Regarding the overall winter season, the average air temperature may be deemed close to normal in the entire country (with a half-degree negative anomaly), basically above-normal in the ETR, and sub-normal in the ATR. The anomalies amounted to +2…4° in the European North and in Chukotka, and to -2° or lower than that in Siberia, Yakutia and most of the Far East.
MAIN WEATHER AND CLIMATE TRAITS IN THE NORTHEN HEMISPHERE AS OF JANUARY 2023
Air temperature
The New Year in the ETR commenced with very warm weather: since the first day, new daily temperature maxima started to arise in the Moscow, Tula, Orel, Smolensk, Kaliningrad and other Regions. But later, the Arctic air rushed in these areas as well as in the northern regions of Russia, and frosts at the end of the first decade and at the beginning of the second one brought new temperature minima reaching -40° or below in the Volga region and Bashkiria as well as in the Ivanovo, Vladimir and Orenburg Regions. At the same time, the temperatures were down to -50° in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, and -60° or lower in Yakutia. In the second and third decades, abnormally cold weather survived in the east of the country only, and gave way to the warmth in the ETR where new daily temperature maxima were recorded in the Crimea and on the coast of the Krasnodar Territory. No such warm weather had been seen at this time of year for more than sixty years before. Right amid the winter, the thermometer readings rose above +20° sometimes. The unprecedented warm weather was also observed in Central Russia (Smolensk, Bryansk, Orel and other Regions) as well as beyond the Arctic Circle. But the weather in the east of the country was very cold still: the thermometers in Trans-Baikal, in the Amur Region, in the Khabarovsk and Primorye Territories and on Sakhalin indicated record-breaking low values. On Sakhalin, a new absolute minimum temperature for January was set to -44.9°.
As a result, the monthly-averaged temperatures turned out to be noticeably higher than usual in the north of the ETR, in some parts of Central Russia and in the south of Western Siberia (with +1…4° and higher anomalies). In contrast, these monthly averages in the north of Siberia, in Yakutia and in the Far East were 2-8° below normal. January in the 21st century was never so cold in the south of the Far East, and was the third coldest in its north after January 2021 and January 2001 which were even colder there.