MAIN WEATHER AND CLIMATE TRAITS IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE AS OF MAY 2026

Air temperature

With the beginning of May, cold weather left the ETR, and the temperatures became normal, or even two or more degrees warmer in the Central Federal District. New daily maxima of air temperature were recorded in the Ryazan, Tula, Smolensk, Bryansk and Orel Regions, in the south of the Moscow Region, and in the neighbouring Pskov and Nizhny Novgorod Regions. In the second decade, the heat flow increased and spread over the entire Russian Plain. The decade-averaged temperature anomalies reached +3-4°, or +5-6° and higher in the north, and new daily temperature maxima were measured again, now in the Upper and Middle Volga regions, as well as in the north: in the Arkhangelsk and Vologda Regions, in the Komi Republic, and in the Nenets Autonomous region. In the third decade, high positive anomalies survived in the Russian North and in the north of the Central and Volga Federal Districts only, while the weather in the rest of the ETR turned cool, with the decade-averaged air temperatures up to 1.5° lower than their normal values in some places.

In the Urals, the weather was abnormally warm for almost the entire month, with new air temperature maxima recorded, and the average air temperature was two to three or more degrees higher than normal in each decade.

In Siberia, abnormally warm weather persisted throughout the first decade of May (with anomalies of +3-4° or greater), and new air temperature maxima were also recorded. Yet in the second half of the month, everything changed: the warmth still retaining in Taimyr and its nearby regions in the second decade gave way to the colds, and the decade-averaged air temperatures turned out to be 2-3° less than normal in many entities of the Federation in this Federal District.

Air temperature

Exceptionally warm weather that spread across European Russia in the second half of March remained warm at the beginning of April. In the first decade of the month, the decade-averaged temperatures were 2-3 or more degrees higher than normal, moreover, not in the ETR alone, but also in the south of the Urals and of Western Siberia. Meanwhile, even higher anomalies developed in the Far East.

But in the second decade, cold weather came to the central, western and southern ETR regions: in the Krasnodar Territory, Crimea, Adygea, Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria, where the air temperatures on some days dropped below zero and the decade-averaged temperature anomalies changed to negative. Warmth survived solely in the north and north-west of the ETR, in the Middle and Lower Volga region and in the south of the Urals, where new daily temperature maxima were recorded during the decade. The rest of Russia submerged into colds: for example, the decade-averaged temperatures in Siberia turned out to be 2-7° lower than normal.