June 22,2020

Anna Murray 

The small town of Verkhoyansk in the Arctic is located about 2,900 miles northeast of Moscow and further north than Fairbanks of Alaska. On June 20, the town reached an all-time record at 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit and was 32 degrees above the normal high temperature. It is perhaps the hottest temperature recorded in Siberia and also the hottest temperature recorded north of the Arctic Circle.

According to the meteorological data, temperatures in the town have an average -40 degrees Fahrenheit in winter and rarely get warmer than 68 degrees Fahrenheit in summer. Thus, this northeastern Siberian town has set a record for the highest temperature ever documented in the Arctic Circle.

The average temperatures recorded in the December-May period have been the warmest weather since 1979. The Siberian Arctic is having rapidly increasing temperatures as a result of human-caused global warming among conditions of melting snow and ice, melting permafrost from large wildfires, and other climate changes.