MAIN WEATHER AND CLIMATE TRAITS IN THE NORTHEN HEMISPHERE AS OF MAY 2020
Air Temperature
The abnormally cold weather which settled in the ETR in April remained cold in May. In addition, negative temperature anomalies were increasing and expanding over time. Whereas in the first decade they were observed in the south only, and the conditions in the rest of the ETR were close to normal, in the second and third decades they reached -2…-3° almost all over the ETR. Frosts in the second half of May were frequent in the North-West, Central and Volga Regions of Russia. The unprecedented minima of air temperature were recorded in many locations of this territory as well as on the Low Volga and the coast of the Sea of Azov. From time to time, warm air broke through to the south of the ETR and then, new events of record-breaking heat were identified in the North Caucasus. In Sochi, the temperature maxima exceeded +30°. On the monthly average, the air temperature everywhere from Karelia to the North Caucasus was about 1.0-1.5° below the normal value.
Just as in April, heat prevailed in the Urals and to the east of them. In the Ural and Siberian Federal Districts, this May was the warmest one in the history of meteorological observations, i.e. since 1891. In this area, the anomalies of monthly-averaged air temperature exceeded +4…+10°, reaching +12° or more in the second decade. The air temperature was over +30° in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and over +25° in Igarka and Taimyr. Due to such hot weather, the ice area in the Kara Sea shrank to its minimum for this time of year.
MAIN WEATHER AND CLIMATE TRAITS IN THE NORTHEN HEMISPHERE AS OF APRIL 2020
Air Temperature
In April, fabulous warmth of March survived beyond the Urals only. From the Ural Mountains to Yakutia and Kolyma, the average air temperature in each decade exceeded the normal value by 3-12°. In Siberia, thermometer readings rose to above +20° on some mid-April days, and crossed the +30° mark by the end of the month. This April was the warmest in the history of meteorological observations in Siberia, and the third warmest in the Urals – below April 1995 and April 1951 in the ranking list. The monthly-averaged air temperature in the Far East (in the Primorye and Kamchatka Territories and in the Sakhalin Region) was approximately normal, but it did not preclude this average calculated over the entire Asian territory from regaining its absolute maximum dated 1997.
A strikingly different picture was observed in the ETR where the March heat was replaced by cold. And if the average air temperature in the first decade remained close to normal there or even slightly higher than that in the Central and Volga Regions, the temperature anomalies after a long intervention of cold almost all over the ETR reached -1…-2° in the second decade and -2…-5° in the third one. Night frosts in the south of the ETR could be as severe as -10°. Due to this, the monthly-averaged air temperature was subnormal everywhere from the southern regions of the North-West Federal District to the southern border of Russia. As for the whole country, the European cold was much less powerful yet than the Asian heat, and this April turned out to be the warmest in the meteorological chronicle of Russia. The previous record-breaking achievement of 1997 was exceeded by 0.2°.