🇷🇺Russia

Russia (approximately 17.1 million km²) extends from 41°11′–81°51′N and 19°38′E–180° as Earth's largest country spanning eleven time zones across Eurasia from the Baltic Sea and Black Sea in the west through the Ural Mountains continental divide to the Pacific Ocean in the east, bordered by fourteen countries plus North Korea, Norway, and China.

The vast territory encompasses extraordinary topographic diversity — the East European Plain west of the Urals including Moscow and St. Petersburg, the West Siberian Plain (world's largest continuous lowland), the Central Siberian Plateau, the Russian Far East mountain ranges, the Caucasus Mountains featuring Elbrus at 5,642 m (Europe's highest peak and Russia's summit), the Altai, Sayan, and Verkhoyansk ranges, and Arctic archipelagos including Franz Josef Land and Severnaya Zemlya.

Mammoth river systems dominate hydrology: the Volga (Europe's longest at 3,530 km draining into the Caspian), the Ob-Irtysh (5,410 km), Yenisei (5,539 km), and Lena (4,400 km) flowing north into the Arctic Ocean, plus the Amur (4,444 km) reaching the Pacific.

The climate spectrum ranges from tundra ET across Arctic coasts and islands through subarctic Dfc/Dfd/Dwd covering most of Siberia and the Far East to humid continental Dfb around Moscow and the west, continental semi-arid BSk in southern steppes, and humid subtropical Cfa along the Black Sea coast at Sochi.

Moscow (central European Russia) averages −6°C in January and 19°C in July with 700 mm annual precipitation fairly evenly distributed. The July-August 2010 heatwave reached 38.2°C and caused approximately 55,000 deaths through heat stress, smoke inhalation from peat and forest fires, and associated health impacts. St. Petersburg (northwestern Baltic coast) registers −6°C in January and 18°C in July with 660 mm plus maritime moderation.

Yekaterinburg (Urals divide) records −13°C in January and 19°C in July with 540 mm. Novosibirsk (West Siberian Plain) drops to −16°C in January and 19°C in July with 430 mm. Krasnoyarsk (Central Siberia) plunges to −16°C in January and 19°C in July with 470 mm. Yakutsk (coldest major city on Earth) reaches −38°C in January and 19°C in July with 240 mm annual precipitation, exemplifying extreme continental climate.

Vladivostok (Pacific coast) averages −12°C in January and 20°C in July with 830 mm heavily summer-concentrated. Sochi (Black Sea subtropical zone) registers 6°C in January and 24°C in July with 1,700 mm. Russia is warming 2.5 times faster than the global average.

Recent events include the June 2020 Verkhoyansk reading of 38.0°C (Arctic temperature record), the April-May 2024 Orenburg floods affecting over 10,000 homes, the 2019 Siberian wildfires burning 13.1 million hectares, the 2023 Yakutia wildfires consuming over 5 million hectares, and permafrost thaw affecting Arctic regions.

Our archive covers 2 Russian cities with daily ERA5 reanalysis data going back to 1940. The warmest July averages occur in Moscow, around 23.1°C, while Moscow records the coldest January nights near −12.1°C. Comparing the last decade against the 1940–1970 baseline, mean temperatures across these cities have risen by about 2.5°C.