Siberia Hit with Record-Breaking Heat and “Worst Heat Wave Ever”

2023.06.09 Fri posted at 10:41 JST

（ＣＮＮ） Siberia in Russia’s Far East is experiencing record-breaking temperatures of over 37.7 degrees Celsius. It’s only the beginning of June, but Siberia has been shrouded in an unusual heatwave, with temperatures soaring.

According to Maximiliano Herrera, an expert who studies extreme weather around the world, Yalutorovsk recorded a record high of 37.9 degrees on Saturday.

All-time highs were broken at several locations in Siberia on Saturday, with Baevo hitting 39.6 degrees and Barnaul hitting 38.5 degrees.

Herrera tweeted that the region is experiencing the “worst heat wave ever”, with some observatories recording the hottest temperatures in 50 to 70 years.

“The record continues to be broken today, with temperatures reaching around 40 degrees Celsius again,” Herrera told CNN on Wednesday.

Siberia is also suffering from large-scale forest fires. At least 21 people died in forest fires in Russia’s Ural Mountains in May. Due to the extreme heat, forest fires are expected to become even more serious.

A record heat wave is not confined to Siberia, but is spreading across Central Asia. Turkmenistan’s temperature of 42 degrees Celsius in early April was a world record for this latitude, Herrera said.

On Saturday, temperatures exceeded 45 degrees in China, 43 degrees in Uzbekistan and 41 degrees in Kazakhstan. “Historic heat waves that rewrite the world’s climate history,” Herrera said.