MOSCOW, April 4 (RIA Novosti) – The 2012-2013 winter period in Moscow set a number of weather records, including for precipitation, a deputy mayor of the Russian capital said Thursday.
Pyotr Biryukov, in charge of utilities and urban improvement, said the city has not seen such a winter in more than 100 years. This winter saw a record amount of snow, and fluctuations in temperature, with the mercury crossing the zero mark some 60 times, he said.
Noting the frequent appearance of freezing rain, Biryukov said: “In 2009-2010, Moscow registered one or two instances of freezing rain, and this year we had eight of them.”
January and March were about 7 degrees Celsius colder than usual, Biryukov said, while praising the utility service providers for dealing with the effects of the cold weather.
In late March, a man in Moscow stripped down to his swimming costume in front of the national weather forecast center in a solitary picket to demand warmer temperatures, as Russia endured unusually cold weather this year well into March.