Over Three Meters of Snow Fell on Moscow This Winter

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 12, 2013) It’s official: This past winter will down in history as one of the snowiest ever.

An astounding 3 meters, 29 centimeters of snow fell on Moscow, more than double the average of 1.5 meters, Deputy Mayor Pyotr Biryukov said Friday.

The snowfall hit another record on Feb. 12, when 30 centimeters of snow fell on the capital in just 12 hours, he said. In March, the city saw the most snow in the last half century.

There were also unusual winter frosts when the temperature did not rise above minus 19 degrees for 15 days.

But city workers were able to cope with the extreme weather conditions, said Biryukov, who oversees municipal housing and public works.

“Today, we can firmly and confidently say that the communal and energy workers survived this period. Over the past three years, we have worked without a single heat and power outage,” he said, Interfax reported.

There were several cases of broken power lines in “new Moscow,” the territory added to the Moscow proper last year. But once mobile generators were set up, the residents had no problems receiving electricity, Biryukov said.