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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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How stupid.. giving alcohol to an animal or a human thats cold and in freezing weather is can be a death sentence. Alcohol does not help one in the cold it actually makes one feel warmer but allows for one to lose fingers, toes, noses and die quicker..despite the time honored idea of dogs saving people with small rum or wisky or vodka barrels around their necks, it doesn't work...alcohol is not anti freeze..
50 below? Obvious global warming conditions.
Hey, get a fat Russian chick..warmth in the winter and shade in the summer (an a mustache to keep your balls warm).
knock knock knock everybody!!! "it felt like -10" "feels like -50" these are not ACTUAL Temperatures! those reading take the wind into account, these are windchill factors and "feels like" temperatures.....this stuff 30 years ago was VERY NORMAL....it's because the earth has warmed so much that winters rarely get that cold anymore and because it's such a rarity now that when it does happen....it make headlines .....all you have to do is compare todays temperatures with temperatures from before 1990 and you'll know what I mean.
No Derrick - that is the straight temperature w/out wind chill. It has been 50 below in the Yukon Territory, Canada, 48 below in Fairbanks and 50 below in Huslia, Alaska and all of those temperatures are without a wind chill factor. Wind, depending on its direction, will either warm or cool temperatures. Nonetheless, the temperatures mentioned are straight temperatures with no wind chill factored into them.
Hey...PETA..see those beautiful women in their FUR COATS.....EH.. Wanna try and take em...WHAaaaaCK.
Global Warming alarmism is a scam. The earth is still cooler today than it was during the medieval warm period. Even the scam-artists of Gore know that. That is why they hid the temperatures during that period from the original hockey stick curve since proven a lie for many other reasons. The Arctic is now losing some ice. The Antarctic is now gaining ice. The media covers the Arctic. It was warm in the US this year blasted over the news. Russia is freezing like it hasn't in decades. At least we have a couple articles. Anyone with a bit of intelligence knows that when a politician takes up a scientific position, there is corruption and fraud going on. They are not smart enough to evaluate the science, only smart enough to evaluate how much money they can steal from the poor and the middle class.
so just b/c it may or may not have been warmer during medieval times means what?? I dont' know where or how you think the planet in anyway is getting cooler - b/c no one really knows what the temperatures were back then b/c record keeping did nto begin until only 125 years ago.. what we do know is that, yes, the earth does go thru LONG term cyclical cycles. what we are experiencing now is at an unprecedented rate.. more species are going extinct today than during the age of the dinosaurs.. everything is happening at an unprecendented rate and its NOT some coincidence that the growth of man is occurring at the same time..
your right, politicians aren't smart enough to study the science.. but, I or you are! and for what its worth, I don't need science to see the changes and to see how logical it is that the same time man is growing at infinite speed, it can not be sustained with finite amoutn of resources.. so, either way you look at it - GW or not.. we don't have the resources for energy to sustain our lifestyle anyways!
it is an undeniable fact the planet is getting hotter.. yea last year everyone talked about 2012 being so hot b/c it was.. just like every year before that was warmer than the one before.. These nutjob deniers are playing with fire thinking its some hoax. your way of life will not change. you will not be effected in the slightest.. its just propaganda when they talk about more taxes, less taxes, etc.. the ONLy way your life will change is by paying more and more for your energy costs - which is contradictory to the GW movement which will lead to cheaper alternatives...
so, feel free to continue to pay $6 a gallon of gas b/c what this leads to is positive change.. weonly have maybe 40 to 50 years left of oil anyhow.. so keep paying those energy companies all yoru money while the rest of us in the near future will pay $1,000 for a solar panel to heat, power, cool our homes and charge our cars. maybe not today or tomorrow but sometime sin the next 20 years the technology will be there.. and you'll be thanking us then!! as this is where the "GW" debate is leading too!! its only positive b/c otherwise you or we, are playing with fire!! we have no idea of the ramifications!
going back 1,000,000 years in the ice record we see the ups and downs of co2 levels.. carbon12 atoms.. these carbon12 atoms are accumulating by 4 gigatons every year (man made)! not natural or volcanoes as some deniers like to say b/c volcanoes emit carbon13 atoms.. Anyways, it takes roughly 70000 years to go from 20parts per million of co2 in the atmosphere to around 150 parts per million at its peak.. so over the course of 1,000,000 years it never really got much higher than this 150ppm range - well, in just 70 years, we ballooned from 150 to 390!! - a 240ppm increase in just 70 years when it takes the "natural cycle" some 7,000 years to go up that much! so i dont know why you just call that "witchery" but you are right - it is alarming, so feel frree to call me an "alarmist" if you will.. as its totally rationale to be concerned about the effects this can cause.. b/c, we just do not know and I don't wanna sit here and wait.. that's hard solid fact and its no scam! you have been fooled by the propaganda from deniers yourself as well..
I do however, feel the debate is necessary.. that the science must be ridiculed as science always is.. as it leads to new discoveries, etc.. but we are also playing with fire and a dangerous one at that..
While I agree w/ the "alarming" part (tired of hearing about it so much, esp. during typically hot Summertimes) I don't agree that Global Warming is some kind of elaborate scam. Anyone who was around to remember snow in October/November as a regular occurance in Central Virginia (where I've lived for nearly half-a-century) will tell you the weather is definitely changing, has changed. We went nearly a decade btw. snowfalls of >10", and some Winters we've had barely a few inches of the stuff. For whatever reason, we are experiencing a warming period in the Lower 48. More violent storms, more flooding (while at the same time, drier and hotter Summertimes.) It's getting scary to think what things will be like in another decade's time. Global Warming is not something Gore invented to make a mint; I first heard the term in the 70's. It's not a new idea.
Man-made/Man-helped along? Maybe, maybe not. But to deny it's happening is simply ostrich-headed, and flies in the face of the facts of what's going on w/ our climate the last few decades (the ones I've experienced, I've no idea what the weather was like prior to my child-hood, much less centuries ago.)
This was the weather that defeated Hitler's army. Those Russians are tough.
why would you post this story?
it is obviously a hoax.
we have massive life-threatening Global Warming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! not cold
I thought it was acid rain. oh yeah, that was last decades issue du jour
Wait...it's supposed to be warming. what gives? Russia you are not cooperating
Global warming? I dont think so!
It was so cold in Moscow that I saw a couple of lawyers with their hands in their own pockets.
I would freeze to death, wouldn't be able to afford any of them coats. They look high price to me.
Sounds like a great place for the tea bagges
And,John bohner head
yikes! I have come to enjoy reading comments to an article more than I do reading the article itself - b/c it always becomes political. People are crazy. making everything political. It's GW, its not GW.. It's climate change, its not climate change.. give it a break! Climate Change is real. its happening. no one is forcing you to change your life. your way of life will remain the same.. you can very well even still pay $6 a gallon of gas while the rest of us will pay $1,000 in the near future for a solar panel that will heat, cool, power our homes and charge our cars. its inevitable anyways b/c there's only maybe 40 years left of Oil resources anyhow! infinite growth of society can not be sustained by finite amount of resources - so I really do NOT understand what all the fuss is about? b/c its only leads to more options and solutions for cheaper alternatives to energy..
no one needs science to see the temperatures changing before our eyes. they maybe experiencing an awful cold snap but just a few years ago they experienced their hottest temperatures and a major drought. as that's what climate change brings, more drought and famine.
It's simple - carbon atoms attract heat. changing the weather. man put a hole in the ozone layer using hairspray b/c chlorine atoms, when heated by the sun rays, eat up O3 (Ozone). its simple chemistry. man also created the dust bowl of the 1930s completely changing the weather patterns for 2/3 of the country. so man is very signficant and can change the weather!!
just like adding more feathers to a blanket, it gets warmer.. as does the excess carbon changing our climate.. So, going back 1mil years in the ice record, we can see co2 levels.. they have a range from about an average over 1 million years of a low of 20 parts per million to an average peak over 1 million years of 150 parts per million..approx. and it takes some 7000 years to see that increase or decrease of 130 ppm!! 7,000!! well, not only have we seen an increase of 240ppm to the highest co2 levels in 1,000,000 years to a whopping 390 - it only took 70 years since the last peak of around 150 was recorded around 1945!!! this is man made - fossil fuels are carbon 12 atoms.. not volcanoes which are carbon 13.. as many NutJob deniers like to say well nature puts out more co2 than Man. wrong - b/c the co2 that's accumulating by 4 gigatons every year are organic, plant based carbon12!! and it just so happens we see this monumental increase of co2 at the same time, the planet is undeniably leading to warmer temperatures..and climate change..
not for nothing though, I think this GW debate is very healthy. its very important and necessary to refute the science as it can lead to more discoveries and technologies.. BUT this doesn't mean we stop moving to different forms of energy!!!! something needs to be done b/c we are playing with fire. 2012 was the hottest on record. just like every year prior was the hottest on record. tho 2012 had major impacts on crops and suffered major losses during heatwaves that last months instead of the usual week or so! these changes are happening too fast which does not coorelate with the long, progression and slower changes the earth typicaly takes during natural cycles..
Yep;
Ask THEM about global warming. Interesting...
-40 or -50 doesn't feel any different. We get those temps in Alberta quite often. Looking at -30 for Xmas day
These are straight temperatures with no wind chill factored into them. It has been -52 in the Yukon Territory, Alaska, -48 in Fairbanks, Alaska and minus 50 in Huslia, Alaska. The winter of 2011/2012 had record snowfalls for the same areas.
I'm praying for you guys over in Russia and any other effected areas. May your fires burn warm. :)
That sucks and is really sad, but welcome to January in North Dakota.
Let me guess.... this too is global warming
It's really, really cold in Siberia? I mean, real cold? Like, colder than almost any place on earth? Gee, who wudda thunk.
I'm from Novosibirsk in Russia, it's true, very very cold here)) two or three weeks we had -38 -43 C about city, but in village was -45 -47 C xD
now -27 C and we are happy
Good morning, Mike. Hello from Minnesota.
While there can be no doubt the world is experiencing a "climate change," and steps need to be gradually undertaken to improve (or at least maintain) current conditions for future generations, I doubt we'll see "Russian Hotties" wearing bikinis during Winter anytime soon.
Stories like this just go to prove what Chris Rock said was right on target: "If scientists had called it "Global COOLING," we'd have seen some action on that!"
Current conditions have never stayed the same. Your wish is ignorant and foolish.
I am a disabled Gulf War Veteran on va disability and Social Security. Each year I give regular donations to different organizations. World Vision recently sent me a letter saying that a "snow day" for many kids means a day from school and fun in the snow with friends but a "snow day" in parts of Russia means bitter cold temperatures with poor housing, some without heat and some with no protection from the falling snow. Many of them don't have proper clothing to keep them warm either. Make your jokes about global warming, dieing Russians, and alcohol drinking elephants. If Jesus came back today, you all would crucify Him again and make jokes and talk ugly while you were doing it, just like when He was murdered before. It is written that the "End Times", will be bad. Look what just happened a few days ago. You all mock God and make jokes about Russians(people) dieing and then during 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy those same people cry out to God to help them and save them. We use to be a Christian Nation long ago but we turned our backs on God and it is written in His Word, He then would laugh at our calamity. As a country, we cannot be saved. As an individual, you can be saved. Confess your sins, ask for forgiveness, REPENT, that means turn your life and will over to God through His Son Jesus. Pray, that means talk to God through His Son Jesus. Use at least 10% of your income to do God's work/will. Help the poor. Tithe through a local church or television Ministry. Examples are, and not in any special order,(T.D. Jakes, Joyce Meyer, Charles Stanley(In Touch) Joel Osteen,) They have outreaches like World Vision that helps children here in the United States and all over the world. Then you will help feed, cloth, educate, provide needed medicines etc. for people and do God's will. This is way better than making stupid jokes about hurting people when we are all God's children.
You want to be charitable? Get off the back of the working people you bum.
8=======D-------------weirdscience.