Moscow has warmest January on record

MOSCOW: January was the warmest ever recorded in the Russian capital, the country’s weather service said on Friday, as climate change pushes global temperatures to record highs.

"The average temperature observed in Moscow in January was around zero degrees Celsius," Lyudmila Parshina, a meteorologist at Russia’s weather service, Rosgidromet, told AFP. She said Moscow’s average temperature for January was 9.3 degrees Celsius (48.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than average, beating the previous record by 1.5 degrees.

Parshina however declined to say whether the latest temperature record was linked to climate change. Weather records have been kept since 1879 in Moscow and since 1891 in Russia as a whole.

In January, the average snow depth recorded in Moscow was seven centimetres compared to 32 centimetres on average, Rosgidromet said. Known for its cold winters, Moscow has also seen its warmest December in a century. 2019 was also the hottest ever registered in Russia.