Snowpocalypse Russia: Snow Tsunami swallows cars, streets, buildings (Photos)

10 feet of snow in Norilsk buries the city. Major cities all across Russia are buried.

Unrelenting snowfalls have caused unprecedented chaos in Russia. Over the past week, the country has seen scores of traffic accidents, flight delays and, in some cases, the complete isolation of some remote settlements and towns

Moscow had 10 inches of snow which is more than half the January average snow. Thousands of people stranded at airports. 12,000 trucks out trying to remove the snow.

While the snowstorms have caused inconvenience for large population centers in western Russia, they have been life-threatening further east in the country. The polar circle city of Norilsk has been buried under 10 feet of snow – entire apartment blocks, markets, stores and offices were buried under snow overnight. Banks of snow were as high as two people put together, reaching the second-story windows of some apartment buildings. Cars, stores, garages were blocked. Norilsk metropolitan workers were forced to dig passageways through the snow banks to create access between the outside world and the barricaded city. Meanwhile, icicles up to three feet in length have formed off the ledges of buildings, breaking at random and causing a lethal hazard for pedestrians below.

See the news article and a lot more photos here

Source

Elsewhere, the extreme weather continues. In the Altai Republic in Western Siberia, 12 Russian settlements were isolated because of the snowstorm. Seven settlements, with a total population of 1,300 people, remain cut off from the outside world due to the snow drifts. Emergency crews are currently en route to deliver needed supplies to the stranded populations.

reply to post by Rezlooper


Lmao, is that a bottle of whiskey stuck in the snow?

Originally posted by Juggernog
reply to post by Rezlooper

 

Lmao, is that a bottle of whiskey stuck in the snow?

Well, it is Russia and they gotta stay warm. Probably Vodka though, in a dark bottle.

That global warming is brutal isn't it? brrrrr.... It's just rising like nobody's business!

reply to post by Rezlooper

Moscow had 10 inches of snow which is more than half the January average snow.

That line doesn't seem right to me.

Did you mean feet?

Either way if it is "more than half the average for January", it doesn't sound as if (Moscow at least) the snow is all that unusual.




ETA: just looked it up and average snowfall for January in Norilsk is 17.6 inches, so okay, yeah I see the Major difference with this storm.

Growing up in a small town in Northern California (high Sierras) we had a few snow storms like this. The winter of 95 and 97 were the two worse with people leaving their homes through the second story after a heavy snow storm that lasted for days.

The cause of the snowfall amount was El Nino combined with cloud seeding to encourage a larger snow pack for southern California water.

After that, we were told that cloud seeding wasn't allowed anymore. Perhaps Russia has had some recent cloud seeding.

reply to post by Rezlooper


Good stuff Rez!



By God, its Global Cooling!

That's nothing for russians. They are very well used to this kind of thing. Unlike for example brits who shut down the whole country cause they get 5cm snow. They are not used to it. You notice how it says some flights are delayd, instead of saying cancelled.

Parts of Canada get like that some years too.
You jump out your second story with a shovel, and shovel out one door. The other door becomes your alcohol cooler, in Russia's case, the vodka cooler.

The house stays warmer if it's well constructed.
Snow makes a good insulator.

If not constructed well, you don't want a meltdown (leaks), and you don't want a deep freeze or the ice expands and squeezes the house. Good to dig out a bit of a path around the house, and get the snow off the roof before it gets heavy.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
That global warming is brutal isn't it? brrrrr.... It's just rising like nobody's business!

Actually, yeah, major snow events are also caused by rapid rising in global temperatures, and I'm not a global warming nut over CO2. If you read my Dangerous Gas thread in my signature you'll see that I have another idea that our atmosphere is rising much quicker than it should be because of all the methane gas releases. Here's an idea that global warming does effect snow fall, and we've been having some major snow events all over the place this month.

In the last century, the Earth’s average temperature has increased by about 0.8°C, increasing the amount of water the air can hold by about 7%. It is a reasonable conclusion that when it rains, it will rain more and when it snows, it will snow more. So strangely enough, global warming could actually lead to greater snowfall.

Source

Croatia just shattered their snowfall record by 8 inches getting 27 inches. The record was 19 inches set 150 years ago. London just got a foot. Mississippi 4 inches and Tokyo 3 inches, which was a major storm for them.

Originally posted by Chamberf=6
reply to post by Rezlooper

 

Moscow had 10 inches of snow which is more than half the January average snow.

That line doesn't seem right to me.

Did you mean feet?

Either way if it is "more than half the average for January", it doesn't sound as if (Moscow at least) the snow is all that unusual.

ETA: just looked it up and average snowfall for January in Norilsk is 17.6 inches, so okay, yeah I see the Major difference with this storm.

edit on 1/20/2013 by Chamberf=6 because: (no reason given)

In the story I was only talking about Moscow to at 10 inches - Norislk got 10 feet. It said it was the height of two people standing on top of each other.

Originally posted by Rezlooper

Originally posted by Juggernog
reply to post by Rezlooper

 

Lmao, is that a bottle of whiskey stuck in the snow?

Well, it is Russia and they gotta stay warm. Probably Vodka though, in a dark bottle.

It's clearly a clear bottle. Most likely it's whiskey or rum.

reply to post by Rezlooper


Thus my "ETA".

reply to post by Rezlooper


THAT IS AWESOME...

Free housing for the homeless! You could easily make a well insulated home out of those snow banks.

Originally posted by PsykoOps
That's nothing for russians. They are very well used to this kind of thing. Unlike for example brits who shut down the whole country cause they get 5cm snow. They are not used to it. You notice how it says some flights are delayd, instead of saying cancelled.

The whole country has shut down? Somebody forgot to tell those of us living here! We've been going about our daily business and haven't noticed

We have 24 hour rolling news coverage of a few inches of snow here in the uk. With people
being warned they face certain death by stepping out of their front doors I wonder
how sky news and the daily mail would react to 10 feet of snow on the ground....

Sky fails in heavy rain so it wouldnt work under those conditions.

Originally posted by Rezlooper

Well, it is Russia and they gotta stay warm. Probably Vodka though, in a dark bottle.

Wow, that is an eight foot bottle!!!

Originally posted by Atzil321
We have 24 hour rolling news coverage of a few inches of snow here in the uk. With people
being warned they face certain death by stepping out of their front doors

I wonder
how sky news and the daily mail would react to 10 feet of snow on the ground....

my theory is the journos hype it up so they can write their made-up articles from the comfort of their own homes

Wow, now that snow is just totally insane.

Holy cow.

Just crazy.