New Cold Wave Sends Siberian Temps To Record Lows: -69F In Magadan

[hatrack]

A new wave of Siberian cold struck Russia this week, plunging temperatures to record lows in the far eastern part of the country and sweeping as far as Moscow, officials said Thursday. In neighbouring Georgia meanwhile one person died and two dozen were injured in the second city Kutaisi as heavy snowfalls collapsed buildings, cut power supplies and stopped a train in its tracks.

"There are no warmer temperatures in sight," said Dmitry Kiktyov, deputy head of Russia's Hydrological and Metereological Centre, adding the freeze would last at least six more days.

The temperature on Thursday night was forecast to fall to minus 56 degrees Celsius (minus 69 Fahrenheit) in western parts of Magadan region - an area on Russia's Pacific Ocean coast once home to some of the deadliest labour camps in the Soviet Gulag and also the site of major gold mines. The previous lowest temperature in the area was minus 53 C (minus 63 F), the Gazeta.ru news site reported.

A hundred modern-day prisoners were evacuated from the region earlier this week when the heating at their camp broke down as temperatures reached minus 52 C (minus 61.6 F), regions.ru said. In Moscow, the temperature is forecast to fall to minus 25 C (minus 13 F) and reach minus 48 C (minus 54 F) in western Siberia and minus 36 C (minus 33 F) in the city of Murmansk in northwestern Russia, metereological officials said.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/New_Siberian_Cold_Wave_Hits_Russia_Georgia.html

[htuttle]

1. -69F?!? That's almost Martian-cold!

At that temperature, all sorts of unexpected stuff starts to happen, like copper cabling snapping like breadsticks, fluids freezing before they hit the ground, etc...I've only experienced down to about -45F, and it was unbearable even at that temperature, much less 20 degrees colder. Lungs freezing when you try to breath -- it even felt like my eyeballs were freezing.

Hell, there's probably a wind chill too that makes it even worse...

[phantom power]

2. Madden-Julian Oscillation

Something is going on with the jet-stream. It's keeping things warm over here, and cold in the other hemisphere. Just one more thing that climate change is affecting, that we don't quite understand, I suppose.

The particular global pattern that Higgins and other forecasters are closely watching this winter is called the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), after Roland Madden and Paul Julian of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who first detected it in the early 1970s.

The oscillation is a huge, slow-moving atmospheric wave that stretches at least halfway around the globe on both sides of the equator. As one phase of the wave passes over a region, air is slowly rising — much too slowly to feel — which triggers showers and thunderstorms. During the other phase air is slowly sinking, which inhibits rain. For any particular location, changes between phases occur around each 40 to 45 days.

Since early January the phase of the wave that enhances showers and thunderstorms has been over the Pacific roughly from the Philippines and Indonesia stretching east more than 2,000 miles. Thunderstorms here are pumping huge amounts of air high into the atmosphere, which affects the path and strength of the west-to-east jet stream.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2002/2002-01-30-mjo-uswx.htm

[roguevalley]

3. we just had a spell of -34. unbelievable. poor things.

[Strelnikov_]

4. "He Was Safe. He Remembered The Advice Of The Old-Timer On

Sulpher Creek, and smiled. The old-timer had been very serious in laying down the law that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below. Well here he was; he had had the accident; he was alone; and he had saved himself. Those old-timers were rather womanish, some of them, he thought. All a man had to do was keep his head, and he was all right. Any man who was a man could travel alone.

. . .

High up in the tree one bough capsized its load of snow. This fell on the boughs below, capsizing them. It grew like an avalanche, and it descended without warning upon the man and the fire, and then the fire was blotted out!

The man was shocked. It was as though he had just heard his own death sentence.

. . .

But the man remained silent. Later, the dog whined loudly. And still later it crept close to the man and caught the scent of death. This made the animal bristle and back away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food-providers and fire-providers."

From "To Build A Fire" by Jack London

Or, as I call it, another Randian bites the dust.