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°.
MAIN WEATHER AND CLIMATE TRAITS IN THE NORTHEN HEMISPHERE AS OF MARCH 2020
Air Temperature
March in Russia has always been considered a cold month. Indeed, frosts below -10° in the European territory and below -20° in the Asian territory have been commonplace in March for a long time. Yet the air temperature in March has remarkably increased over the recent years, and the events of unprecedented warmth started to follow one another at a high rate. Thus, March 2017 became the warmest in the history of meteorological observations in the country while March 2019, the third warmest in the ranking list. Extremely warm winter of the last year naturally suggested that this tendency would persist. But what happened in reality surpassed all expectations: the average temperature in each decade of the month exceeded the normal value by 8° to 12° or more in various regions. No territories exhibited sub-normal temperatures with the exception of some far north-eastern locations in the first decade. Eventually, the monthly-averaged temperature in most of the country turned out to be 6-8° or more degrees higher than usual. New maxima of air temperature were recorded in the north-west and centre of the country, in the Volga Region and in the Northern Caucasus, in the Crimea, Siberia, Yakutia, Kamchatka and Chukotka. March 2020 became the warmest in the history of meteorological observations in the ETR and in the Volga and South Federal Districts in particular, the third warmest one in the Asian territory, and the second warmest in Russia as a whole – outranked by March 2017 only. The monthly-averaged temperatures in all federal districts entered the Top Ten of highest values in the meteorological chronicle.
Abnormally warm weather occupied all of East Asia as well. The monthly-averaged air temperatures were 3-6° higher than normal in Mongolia, and 2-4° higher in China where their value averaged over the whole country was the fifth highest in the history of meteorological observations. This March was the second warmest in Hong Kong.