MAIN WEATHER AND CLIMATE TRAITS IN THE NORTHEN HEMISPHERE AS OF APRIL 2021
Air Temperature
The first two decades of April were abnormally warm in the ETR. During the second one, the decade-averaged temperatures exceeded their normal values by 4-6°. In the North Caucasus, the air warmed up to +30° sometimes. New daily temperature maxima were recorded in Central Russia, as well as the Russian North where the daily-averaged temperature never dropped below the normal value on any of the twenty days. Yet, the weather became cold in the third decade: its average temperatures everywhere in the ETR save for the Arctic territories were subnormal, down to 2-3 or more degrees below the normal values in some places. Even in the Volgograd and Rostov Regions in the south, April ended up with occasional night frosts.
In the Urals and in Siberia, anomalous warmth with the normal average monthly figures exceeded by 4-7° and more was steadily observed in the north only, whereas in the southern areas, the weather was more volatile. For example, the record-breaking warmth in the Irkutsk Region alternated with the record-breaking cold in Altai and in the south of Western Siberia.
Such volatility was even more noticeable in the Far East. While the temperature anomalies from Taimyr to Chukotka reached -2…-5° in the first decade, the weather in this area became as much as 2-7° warmer than usual in the second and third decades. Unprecedented warmth at this time came to the northern regions of Yakutia and to Chukotka. There, new maxima of daily temperatures were recorded in bulk. The temperature background in the rest territory of the Far East was more stable during the month: in each decade, the average temperature fluctuated around its normal value and did not exhibit large anomalies. The only exceptions were Kamchatka and Primorye where the weather was 2-3° warmer than usual in the first decade, and the Amur Region or south regions of the Khabarovsk Territory where the anomalies turned out to be negative (-1…-3°) in the second decade.
MAIN WEATHER AND CLIMATE TRAITS IN THE NORTHEN HEMISPHERE AS OF MARCH 2021
Air Temperature
Air Temperature
Recall that March of the previous year was the warmest March in the ETR for the entire history of meteorological observations. Judging by the trend of recent years, it seemed that this month could now be called warm rather than cold time of year. But no, March 2021 proved that this would be too early to do. Most of the time, cold anomalies of air temperature prevailed in the ETR. New minimum values were recorded in the Russian North, central Russia and the Volga region: more exactly, not just the daily minima, but the historical minimum temperatures for March. 35-degree frosts crackled in the north of the ETR. Warmth came in the third decade only, and what is more, to the west, north and centre of Russia, but not to the southern region where subnormal temperatures were observed still. As the result, the monthly-averaged air temperatures in most of the ETR were close to their normal values, that is, normal values known to be calculated for 1961-1990, years before the prime of global warming.
In the Urals and to the east of them, the picture was different. This month in the Ural Federal District was colder than usual. Colds down to -40° and below were still freezing the north of Siberia and of the Far East. March in Taimyr, Evenkiya, the north-west of Yakutia, parts of Chukotka and the north of Kamchatka was colder than normal. It was 2-4° or more degrees colder in Siberia and the Urals. Yet, the record-breaking heat often prevailed in the southern regions (the republics of Tyva and Buryatia, the Tyumen, Irkutsk, Amur and Sakhalin Regions, the southern areas of Kamchatka and the Kuril islands). The monthly-averaged temperature in these territories was 2-4° above the normal value.