'Snow apocalypse' descends on Moscow
A record-breaking snowstorm descended on Moscow on Fri, paralysing site visitors, grounding flights and straining efforts of regional authorities to react to the "snow apocalypse". Climatic conditions authorities predict the record-breaking serious weather condition will continue over the weekend with winds achieving speeds of 15-20 metres (50-20 foot) per second and temperature ranges dropping very well below freezing.
On Friday, traffic congestion in the city reached no more than 10 points in line with the Yandex maps provider, unusual even for Moscow notorious because of its logjams. The city's transportation department urged Muscovites to drive carefully or move to public transport to avoid the dangerous road circumstances.
Moscow's air site visitors was affected too, with near to 30 flights reportedly delayed and five cancelled. Some Muscovites praised the snowstorm. "There wasn't more than enough snow in Moscow however now we at least see that there surely is winter in the city," 42-year-previous Vitaly Perevozchikov said on Friday. Moscow's deputy mayor for casing and open public utilities, Pyotr Biryukov, said that metropolis would do "everything necessary" to ensure traffic does not build-up and the sidewalks are clean.
Efforts to clean the streets will continue round-the-clock, he added.
Biryukov told reporters that over 13,500 snowploughs and 60,000 employees had been deployed to manage the extreme weather.
Before this week, Russia's status weather company, Rosgidromet said that the depth of snow in the capital could reach and even surpass the record most of 77 centimetres occur March 2013.
Rosgidromet spokeswoman Maria Makarova stated the snowstorm was due to a cyclone sweeping down from the north, primary picking up cold air that then blended with hot air over the Black Ocean, before turning again up towards central Russia.
Scientists say that seeing that the surface level of oceans warm because of climate change, cyclones are becoming better and carry even more precipitation.
