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Subscribe to RSSThe temperature in Siberia is reaching lows not felt in more than half a century as the mercury dips to 42 degrees below zero and the air instantly freezes boiling water. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
Americans feeling their first wintry blast of the season on Wednesday could take some comfort from this: In Moscow it felt like 10 below – part of a week-long cold spell across Russia that has parts of Siberia feeling like 50 below.
Across Russia, the deep freeze killed at least 45 people over the last week, 21 on Tuesday alone, the English-language Moscow Times reported Wednesday. Nearly 270 people were hospitalized, more than half with frostbite.
Russia's emergency ministry urged everyone in Moscow to stay indoors on Wednesday, while forecasters said the cold could get worse over the weekend.
Siberia has been hardest hit, with cities like Novosibirsk dipping to minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday. With the wind chill, it felt like minus 47.
The temperatures have been abnormally low for Russia at this time of year.
Related: US snowstorm threatens travel
Last week, the cold in Siberia nearly killed two circus elephants after their trailer caught fire, the RIA news agency reported.
A handler quickly devised a plan, buying two cases of vodka from a nearby village and serving it to the elephants -- albeit diluted with warm water.
"After that they roared as if they were in the jungle. Apparently they were happy," the unnamed handler was quoted as saying.
Valery Titievsky / AFP - Getty Images
A woman walking in Novosibirsk, a city in Russia's Siberia, reflects the cold there on Wednesday. Temperatures dipped to minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit -- and the wind chill made it feel like minus 47.
Neighboring Ukraine has also felt the freeze -- 37 people have died there so far this month because of subzero temperatures, the government said Tuesday.
The cold followed storms that left some areas with nearly two feet of snow.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Send that idiot Al Gore over there.
He can't, he's still trying to repair the frozen pipes in his Tennessee home (True story from a few years ago)!
we use to have weather like that in Minnesota 20 years ago.nothern Mn would see temps of 50 below zero once a year..in the Minneapolis area we hardly get below zero weather any more.I work out side and have seen the changes.in the winter of 1993 I started walking in 27* below zero,spent 7 hours out side that day walking.we had the warmest year ever in minnesota this year.,and we are in a drought .the days of ice on the lakes is a week less then the old days.look at the real numbers and realize global warming is real !
You're having a mild winter because the conditions are the same as last year. Weak La Nina.
while that maybe the case - however, La Nina, el nino, etc.. used to occurr maybe every 10 years.. now they occur nearly every year!! natural cycles of the planet take time to change.. the ebb and flow takes thousands, if not millions of years.. we are seeing changes not even in decades..we see changes every year now! at unprecedented rate. the proof is there.. carbon atoms attract heat - its simple chemistry. just like adding feathers or more cotton to a blanket makes it warmer.. more co2, warmer temperatures, brings climate change.. and these are "natural" co2 levels.. as some nutjob deniers like to say.. volcanoes for instance -thats a big one the deniers like to use - well volcanoes emit carbon13 atmos.. the co2 that is accumulating by an astonishing 4 gigatons every year is carbon12 atoms .. plant based, organic matierals..ie fossil fuels..
so, going back in the ice record we see the levels of co2 range from about 20 parts per million to 150 parts per million..and it takes about 7,000 years to see an increase(or decrease) of 130ppm of co2 in the atmosphere.. well the normal peak over 1,000,000 years at its highest was 160ppm.. in just 70 years, co2 levels have skyrocketed by 240ppm to 390 by 2011! what takes "nature" 7,000 years to increase by 130.. only took man 70 years to increase it by 240 to 390 .. and this "390" is the highest its ever been in the 1million years... which just so happens to be increasing year after yeear, the same time the planet is getting warmer and warmer..
So, wait. Is this global warming?
No
From these pictures I'm guessing PETA wouldn't fair too well in Russia.
Unless they make some kind of alcohol they would pretty much be buried under a highway!
Wouldn't you just love to see whats under those fur coats?
I'm guessing that Repugnicans will be using this as evidence that global warming is a myth. They might well maintain this position even when vacationing at the new Club Med Siberia tropical resort.
This is simply winter...it can get quite cold up north this time of year...nothing extreme or rare about it. And yes it is a myth, unless you can prove it isn't a myth.
No, they don't need just this to show that "global warming" is a myth. The fact that there hasn't been any temperature rise in the last decade or the constant fraudulent "science" by places like East Anglia is a pretty good sign that "global warming" is a liberal fraud! Hockey stick graphs, anyone?
45 dead? I bet assault weapons are to blame, huh?
Irrelevant comment? I'll bet stupidity and ignorance is to blame huh?
I honestly don't see what the big fuss is about. I spent 2 years on expat assigment in Canada for the company I work for. I recall going out to start my car one morning and the car's outside air temp thermometer registered at -37 degF INSIDE THE GARAGE.
Was that due to global warming?
Oh Oh it's getting really cold in russia , better tax the @!$%# out of the russians , that'll adjust the weather to where it would be more convenient .
A global warming is where?
You idiots realize that climate change effects various parts of the globe differently don't you?
You all try to get on an icy lake and prospect for gold , specially when the wind kicks in
Brrrr!
"Take some comfort from this?" We're talking about 82 lives that were lost. And we're supposed to be comforted? That's sick.
I am confused, I thought the earth was warming up? Oh wait which is it now Global Warming, Climate Change, Global Cooling? It changes so often Its hard to keep up.
Don't worry about what the libs call it! It is just another word for tax increase!
in the winter months it is cold, in the summer it is warm, the earth is going to be producing fluctuations in the weather until it boils down to four seasons, early summer, mid summer, late summer, and next summer.
I'd certainly love to have the opportunity to warm up those two hotties in the fur coats, although it would probably give me a heart attack, but what the hell, at least I would die with a mile long smile on my face.
I don't understand how so many could have died. This is not unusual temperatures for Russia, they should be used to it. What gives? I lived in Alberta, Canada for a couple of years, it regularly got to -50 F in the winters. No one died there. Even the homeless knew to go to shelters.
Thank you for saying that about Alaska and Canada. We live close to Fairbanks and it was -42 degrees and colder in other places. No one mentions us.
what exactly is ice fog? there are reports of it but no one describes what it is? down here in the lower 48, there is something new called thundersnow, lightning storms in the winter, with unbelievably intense snow, i have only seen it a couple of times, the silence between crackles and flashes is truly remarkable, the snow falling like feathers, really weird.
LOL I know right!!! I was chuckling to myself (until I read about the deaths). Think these people NEED to figure out how to either stay indoors with heat or dress appropriately. YIKES!
I take it no one died when it was -42 degrees then (which is a good thing). Otherwise you would of been mentioned.
Icefog is simply when it gets too cold for the ice crystals in the air to lift off the ground...typically happens when it is super cold....-40ish
Ice smog is all the fuel (wood coal oil....)particles and other crap in the air is mixed with icefog....
I have been in that region when it was 50 degrees below zero and that didn't count the wind chill factor.
It takes an hour to get dressed. You have to have many layers, goggles, face mask, etc.
Many of the usual deaths are because the men went out drinking and stumbled and fell on the way home, freezing to death where they lay.
I believe that. You don't to be drinking and then go out in the cold. You will freeze your Asski off.
Hell, let's bann the cold. this is absolutely appauling with so many dead. The sad thing is we have the homeless die right here in the good old U.S. for reasons such as cold, or various other reasons, and many of them are veterans who America owes. Many of those veterans have drug/alcohol problems , but they don't belong on the street dying. I'm not trying to belittle the event in Newtown,Ct. in any way. God bless their souls. I'm talking about the most powerful country on the planet treating it's citizens the way it does. Now for gun control, pass legislation on acts commited with a firearm, and witnessed by more than one individual, the criminal be dealt with immediately, and be given the same rights of the victim. There should be no doctors access to explore the mind as to why, but only to pronounce death. Maybe then we'll have a deterant.
I love how many still deny climate change. Probably from the same party that says the earth is only 9000 years old.
What climate change? -50 in Russia in the winter? If you think that is any kind of change, you are functionally illiterate. If it WASN'T cold in Russia right now, then you might have a case. But you'd be from the party that thinks the rest of us has to pay for your lifestyle.
Ask a Nazi about how cold the Russian winters get. Or better yet do some research yourself on some world history instead of gulping down the Al Gore koolaid.
what? no news about Alaska? the people of alaska have been freezing their fuzzy parts off for weeks, the high for tomorrow is something like 37 below. brrrrr!
That's too bad, but I wonder what they are dying from. I've been out in -50 F weather (not wind chill, alabamans, degrees.) many times. If you are suitably dressed, you should be able to put in 8 hours outside without dying. If they say it "feels like" 50 below, they mean wind chill. Business as usual, in the winter.
I'm from Minnesota, but....we have to school Russians on dressing for the cold? Really? If you close your eyes, whirl around 3 times, clutch your Al Gore action figure and say "global warming" three times, a palm tree will spring right up next to you.
Come on, russkies....you're better than this.
Probably from exposure after drinking too much
Fairbaks AK. It gets down to -56. I know, and every winter in the -40's. I was there for 14 of those winters, you expect it but never seem to enjoy it.
Damn you global warming!
this is good news, 45 dead ruussians. Would be great if more were dead tho...
What a travesty. They are not dying because of - 10 degrees. They are dying because they have no warm shelter from the russian oppressive government. And instead of all you talking about this travesty all you privilaged middle class liberals are talking about global warming or making fun of the elephant. Pathetic.
Eventually you all are going to live like russians after Obama is through with this country. Stupid college educated liberal boobs.
Is this all due to global warming?
No, its a fairly normal winter, the nights are very long up there now.
mark-3675920 banned for death wishing.