Normally frigid Siberia hits 100.4 degrees Saturday
Siberia’s 100.4-degree temperature Saturday has been “tentatively accepted” by the World Meteorological Organization as a record for areas north of the Arctic Circle.
Set in the small Siberian town of Verhoyansk, it’s also the planet’s northernmost 100-degree reading ever recorded.
“A WMO fast-response evaluation team has given tentative acceptance of this observation as a legitimate observation, which is consistent with current upper air observations at the time in Siberia,” said Randy Cerveny, an Arizona State University professor who also heads the WMO weather and climate extremes team.
“This will now be subject to a normal process for a detailed formal review by a panel of WMO atmospheric scientists.”
The WMO certifies all major weather records worldwide.
Verkhoyansk is above the Arctic Circle in the Sakha Republic, about 2,900 miles northeast of Moscow.
In 2020, Siberia has stood out for its extreme temperatures, which have accelerated the melting of snow and ice; contributed to permafrost melt, which led to a major oil spill; and have gotten the Siberian wildfire season off to an unusually early and severe start, according to the Capital Weather Gang.
Cerveny said that “it has been an unusually hot spring in Siberia, and the lack of underlying snow in the region combined with overall global temperature increases, undoubtedly helped play a critical role in causing this extreme temperature observation.”
The town of about 1,300 residents is recognized by the Guinness World Records for the world’s most extreme temperature range, with a low of minus-90 degrees and a previous high of 98.96 degrees.
The Arctic is among the fastestwarming regions in the world and is heating at twice the global average, the WMO said. Annual surface air temperatures over the past four years (20162019) in the Arctic have been the highest on record.
Above-normal temperatures are expected to continue across the majority of the Arctic for the remainder of the summer, according to the Arctic Climate Forum.