‘Near-zero’ extreme weather: meteorologist about weather in February
The last winter month will continue a three-year cycle of warm February months when the temperatures are several degrees above the average. Docent of the Department of Meteorology, Climate Studies and Air of the Institute of Ecology and Nature Use of Kazan Federal University Timur Aukhadeyev told Realnoe Vremya about it.
“-10 degrees Celsius is the average for February. This is the coldest months of the year. +7 degrees above the average is the anomaly that is forecasted, in other words, it is -3 degrees on average. Daytime temperatures will be around zero in the next few days,in the next decade,” said the meteorologist warning that “this leads to snowfall from the roof and one should be careful.”
According to his data, February was also warm in 2022 and 2023.
“The average temperature in 2022 was -3.2 degrees Celsius. It was -7.7 degrees Celsius last year. And February was cold only in 2021 — 15.2 degrees Celsius,” noted Aukhadeyev.
Earlier, the coldest February was in 1976 — 7.5 degrees below the average.
At the same time, the meteorologist says that during climate change when laws are disrupted, it is hard to forecast what the season will be like compared to the previous one.
As for snowfall, Tatarstan meteorologists do not expect the extreme cold weather like in January to repeat.
“We’re going to be under the influence of the cyclone, in the atmospheric front area, from tomorrow . Snow is expected, but what happened two weeks ago is an extreme occurrence that takes place rarely. Now it will be 2mm a day. Laymen often wrongly understand our figures about 2mm. A millimetre of precipitation is around 10-15mm, or 1-1.5cm high snow,” Aukhadeyev explained.
Nevertheless, the amount of snow already doubled the average and will be accumulating.
“Nowadays the height of the snow coat is 78cm. As a rule, snow is accumulated until the first decade of March when the highest figure is registered,” the expert said adding that the current amount of snow is not a record and put an example of February 2011 when the level reached 105cm.