Blossoming willow in autumn and other natural phenomena

Last week, the air temperature in Moscow hit the maximum level. On Tuesday the temperature was +12.3 degrees Celsius, on Wednesday +14.4 degrees Celsius and on Thursday +14.5 degrees Celsius. As a result, residents of the Moscow region could see blossoming willows. The air temperature in Moscow this week will be also above normal for November.

It is warm not only in Moscow. Blackcurrants appeared in the Leningrad Region.

There are buds swelling on the trees and calendula is blossoming in the Kaluga Region, west Russia.

Observations of animals and birds this year show that the dirty and wet autumn is likely to be followed by a snowy New Year and Christmas and then the real Russian frosty winter will come. Something like this was seen last year. In December 2009, the air temperature in Moscow was + 10 degrees Celsius.

Camomiles blossomed near the Kremlin walls in December last year.

The warm December was followed by an unusually cold January. The air temperature was 10 degrees lower than normal and in the Central Federal District it reached -25-32 degrees Celsius at night.

Night temperatures in the Volga and Urals regions were down to -38 degrees Celsius and in the south of West Siberia they reached -40 degrees Celsius. In Yakutia, the temperature was -60 degrees Celsius. In the North-West Federal District the temperature was -23-30 degrees Celsius - some 4-8 degrees lower than normal.

The unusually low winter temperatures were “compensated” for by the abnormally warm summer. Moscow saw several temperature records and peat bogs caught fire in the Moscow Region, engulfing the capital and nearby regions with smoke.

In Moscow the trees and grass yellowed due to the abnormal heat.

RIA Novosti readers took pictures of other rare natural phenomena – for example massive hail in the Tver Region.

A tornado hit the Baryshevo Isthmus in Karelia, in Northern European Russia

A huge tornado hit a wild beach in Tuapse, on the Black Sea.