Posted on 07/13/2010 11:47:17 AM PDT by TaraP
By Dmitry Solovyov MOSCOW, July 13 (Reuters) - One of the fiercest heatwaves in its history has engulfed Russia, withering crops, causing the worst drought in 130 years and prompting a top public health official to call for Spanish-style siesta breaks.
Central parts of European Russia, the Volga region, southern Urals and Siberia have all been suffering from the scorching heat, which started in late June and often reaches 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in the shade.
Similar conditions have only occurred five times -- in 1919, 1920, 1936, 1938 and 1972 -- since Russia started recording temperatures 130 years ago, Valery Lukyanov, deputy head of Russia's main weather forecast centre Roshydromet, told Reuters.
"This is the sixth year in history when late June and early July pose a real threat from the point of view of abnormal temperatures," he said, adding that Moscow could set its own record if temperatures hit 37C.
The capital's previous high of 36.6 was registered in 1936, Lukyanov said. "God forbid us to set such records," he added.
The Russian Grain Union, an industry lobby, said the country was seeing the worst drought in 130 years. It had already shrivelled grains on 9 million hectares, roughly one fifth of the total area sown to this year's harvest.
The Kommersant business daily, citing estimates by agribusiness companies, said on Tuesday that combined losses of Russia's agricultural industry could total $1 billion this year.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday chaired an emergency meeting on how to help farmers cope with the drought.
The heat is a boon for vendors of ice-cream, soft drinks and beer. Restaurants with outside seating are packed and sales of air conditioners and electric fans have skyrocketed.
RIVER DROWNINGS
But it is also a headache for the authorities nationwide as Russians throng to escape from their stuffy cities to nearby lakes and rivers and take the plunge -- often when drunk. Local media have reported that scores of people have drowned.
Gennady Onishchenko, head of Russia's health protection watchdog, has asked employers to spare their workers and let them take a few hours off after lunch when the heat is severe.
"It is possible to arrange siesta-style breaks...Employers, whenever it is possible of course, ought to think of adjusting work schedules," daily Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted Onishchenko as saying on Tuesday.
There is also a danger of peat bog fires in the forests around Moscow, said Roshydromet's Lukyanov. In the past, Moscow's huge residential districts have suffered from suffocating smoke and low visibility during such fires.
In Germany, a forest fire south of Berlin ignited stray munitions at a former Soviet military base, causing small explosions and preventing firefighters from getting close to the flames, a spokesman for the state of Brandenburg said.
Three people were killed after powerful storms swept across northwest Germany on Monday evening after a heatwave. German farmers face big crop shortfalls from the heat, a spokesman for the German Farmer's Association said, with the grain harvest set to fall 10 to 20 percent below average this year and wheat prices up 16 percent from early June. More hot weather is predicted at the end of the week.
One of the fiercest heatwaves in its history has engulfed Russia, withering crops, causing the worst drought in 130 years
GOD WILL NOT BE MOCKED...
http://readrussia.com/blog/art/00310/
Jesus appearing with McDonald’s golden arches as if in an advertisement with the words, “This is my body”; an icon of the Virgin Mary with what looks like caviar where the figures should be; and a painting of Jesus with a Mickey Mouse head.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/arts/design/13curators.html?_r=2
Fried ruskies, anyone?
“Similar conditions have only occurred five times — in 1919, 1920, 1936, 1938 and 1972 — since Russia started recording temperatures 130 years ago”
See there...now if they would just stop recording the temperature, they wouldn’t have such droughts and heat-waves...shame on them recording the temperature any way....
;)
BORIS, could you please make me a vodka tonic with a lot of ice. What you mean no ice? It melted? OK we drink vodka at room temperature like we always do-—except now room temperature is like sauna temperture.
They need to pass more global warming laws against their own people.
Yes, its been a hot and muggy summer here. I usually stop by the “Live Beer” (unpasteurized beer) shop after work to get 2 liters of Khadizhensk for home consumption!
Any photos of hot (literally and figuratively) Ukrainian babes trying to beat the heat?
I wonder if Barry Soetoro would ever meet with farmers to discuss ways to assist them in extreme natural conditions ?
I guess not until they figure out a way to spend over 2 trillion dollars to sue the sun or something. Then he can make up for it by taxing the sh!t out of produce, and fining the farms for not producing corn for ethanol.
Soetoro policies are almost too easy to predict.
So, heat waves were more prevalent at the beginning of the last century before cars came into widespread use.
Interesting.
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