Temperature Trends in Eurasia

--Siberia:

As of early Saturday, the temperature at Oymyakon, Russia, dipped below -70 F (about-57 C) for the tenth time in the month of December. The low was -71 degrees F, or -57.1 degrees C. The coldest stretch was the five days of -70s spanning the 18th to the 22nd. Respectively, lows were -71, -75, -76 (-60.1 C), -74 and -76 (-60.2 C). The coldest day, the 20th, had an average daily temperature of -74 degrees F, or -58.5 C. Through the 26th, the average monthly temperature is -53.6 degrees F/-47.6 C, which would be 2.4 degrees F (1.4 degrees C) below normal.

Meanwhile, the other infamous "pole of cold" site, Verkhoyansk, has yet to see -70 degrees F this season. Nevertheless, the month of December, thus far, has been colder than usual (by 4.4 degrees F, or 2.4 degrees C).

The biggest city within the Siberian "pole of cold" is Yakutsk. As of the 26th, the average monthly temperature is -43.0 degrees F, or 7.0 degrees below normal. The last time December was this cold was in 2004, when the mean monthly temperature was 10.3 degrees F/5.7 degrees C below normal.

--The below-normal temperatures of the Siberian "pole of cold" are the exception elsewhere over the vastness of Eurasia. In European Russia, there has yet to be any true winter cold at Moscow where, as of the 26th, the average monthly temperature was 9.3 degrees F/5.2 C above normal. At the northern city of Arkhangelsk, average monthly temperature thus far is 11.4 degrees F, or 6.4 degrees C, above normal. And the unusual warmth is still widespread from eastern Europe through European Russia to western Siberia and northern Kazakhstan.