Week of record cold spells across entire northern hemisphere

JAPAN

Record cold, snow envelop Japan Sea coast
Kyodo News

Frigid air swept through a wide area along the Sea of Japan on Thursday, dumping record snowfalls and setting record-low temperatures for December in northern parts of the country, the Meteorological Agency said. Local observatories measured 93 cm of snow in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, and 86 cm in the city of Akita in the morning, both breaking accumulation records. The first snowfall of the season was recorded in warmer areas, including Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, and the cities of Hiroshima and Fukuoka. In Memuro, central Hokkaido, temperatures dipped to minus 25, the lowest reading ever recorded in December.

CANADA

Edmonton, Alberta (AHN) - Edmonton registered on Sunday a record-high freezing temperature of minus 46.1 degree Celsius. It broke the old record of negative 36.1 degree set in 2008.

The extremely cold weather was logged 5 a.m. on Sunday at the Edmonton International Airport, according to Environment Canada meteorologist Pierre Lessard. If the wind chill is included in the measure, the recorded temperature was at minus 58.4 degree Celsius. Edmonton's city center also broke its own record Sunday when it logged on Sunday a temperature of minus 36.5 degree Celsius at 8 a.m. It broke the previous Dec. 13 record of negative 32.8 degree Celsius set in 1882. Southwest Saskatchewan residents are waking up to a second day of record breaking cold, as extreme wind chill values continue to grip the province. Swift Current’s temperature plummeted to -32.4 Celsius yesterday, breaking the previous record low of -30.6 which dated back to 1940.

RUSSIA
Moscow’s temperature plunged to a four-year low, killing at least two people, freezing cash machines and pushing electricity consumption to a record.

The “polar cold” reached minus 26 degrees Celsius early Wednesday, said Tatiana Podnyakova, a spokeswoman for the Federal Meteorological Service. “We are seeing ultrapolar intrusions of air,” Podnyakova said. “This is a very major negative anomaly.” The last time that Moscow was so cold was in January 2006, when temperatures dipped below minus 30 C, and the last time that it was this frigid in December was in 1997, Podnyakova said. Moscow had the warmest December on record last year, with an average of 3.7 C. The coldest was in 1888, when it averaged minus 18.3 C.

USA

Record low temperatures in Washington Sate last week are resulting in something of a record in insurance claims.

Seattle's PEMCO Insurance says claims dollars of nearly $4.3 million rank the cold temperatures from Dec. 7 through 13 among Washington's top six severe cold weather events of the past 25 years.