Images from the city of around 13 million people showed residents struggling to navigate deep snow in central districts, while commuter trains across the Moscow region were delayed and motorists faced long traffic jams on Thursday evening, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
“January was a cold and unusually snowy month in Moscow,” the university said on social media. “By 29 January, the Moscow State University Meteorological Observatory had recorded almost 92 millimetres of precipitation, which is already the highest figure in the last 203 years,” it added.
In some parts of the capital, snowdrifts reached up to 60 centimetres on Thursday. Meteorologists noted that snow is largely composed of air, meaning the depth of accumulated snow on the ground can far exceed scientific precipitation measurements, which calculate the amount of water that has fallen.
According to the observatory, the record snowfall was caused by deep and extensive cyclones accompanied by sharp atmospheric fronts moving across the Moscow region.
“There was much more snow when I was a kid, but now we practically don’t have any snow at all — there used to be much more,” Pavel, a 35-year-old Moscow resident, told the AFP.
Earlier this month, Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka region declared a state of emergency after a powerful snowstorm left its main city partially paralysed.
