Forecaster Leus warned Muscovites about severe frosts for a week

The coldest weekend awaits residents of the capital

Moscow, the Moscow region and other areas of the Central region are recovering from a heavy snowfall on February 7, caused by the merciless “Olga”, but immediately after it today, on February 8, frosts hit us again, as weather forecasters warned about in advance. Friday and Saturday promise to be the coldest in the near future, with temperatures plummeting to -22. When Muscovites should expect spring warming and snow melting, MK tried to find out from the leading employee of the Phobos weather center, Mikhail Leus. In general, it is not customary for meteorologists to give long-term forecasts, but for our readers the specialist made an exception.

When the warmth will come to Moscow, none of the leading Russian weather forecasters will say now. However, according to Mikhail Leus, given today’s trends, it can be assumed that the snow in Moscow “at best will melt completely in early April,” and March, as it should be according to climatic characteristics, will be a winter month. However, this does not mean that there will not be some periods of warm weather in March. Such periods will occur in March just as they did in January and occur in February.

“The main word that can describe the weather in March is instability,” says Mikhail Leus. – The same can be said about the rest of February. We will either fall into deep frosts or return to thaws. But, naturally, from the beginning of March the frosts will be less intense, and positive temperatures will be more noticeable. But, nevertheless, on average March will still be a winter month.

– Now frosts have come to us, how long will they last?

– The return of temperatures to their climatic norm after these frosts – and in the coming days the temperature will be 6-7 degrees below normal – and the next arrival of precipitation in the form of snow (but not as heavy snowfall as it was) are expected at the beginning of next week 12-13 February.

Earlier today, the weather forecaster reported in his Telegram channel that “the height of Moscow snowdrifts has exceeded the maximum of this winter.” “The heavy snowfalls with which Olga rushed across the capital region significantly increased the height of the snow cover,” wrote Leus, specifying that the height of the snow cover (according to the VDNKh base weather station) today, February 8 in the morning, reached 60 cm – “This is the highest value since the beginning of this winter.” This figure exceeds one and a half climate norms (166%).

There has not been so much snow in the capital for more than 10 years. However, today’s snowdrifts do not reach record values ​​- on February 8, 1994, the snow cover in Moscow was 65 cm, the weather forecaster reported.