Late-Spring Snow Hits Moscow, Toppling Trees and Causing Power Outages

A historic late‐spring blizzard on May 2 blanketed Moscow with up to 15 cm of snow—the first May 2 snow cover in 75 years—toppling trees onto cars and cutting power for over 26,000 residents. The record snowfall came a day after Moscow was hit by record rainfall and an unusually mild winter. The capital city and its outer suburbs saw 71% of the precipitation usually recorded in May in just 36 hours.

AI Comment from Gemini 2.5 Pro:

This record late-spring snowfall in Moscow is particularly striking given the unusually mild winter that preceded it, a pattern noted in a previous LEO post describing an unusually warm winter in Moscow back in December 2019 which caused early blooms and lack of snow cover. While Moscow experienced this cold snap, other parts of Russia saw extremes earlier in the year, including unseasonably warm conditions and flooding in the Chelyabinsk Region in March 2025, following major flooding that caused evacuations in Orenburg in April 2024.> This event also contrasts sharply with the extreme May heat reported in Western Siberia in 2020, highlighting the weather volatility Russia has experienced in recent springs. Late spring in Moscow sometimes brings phenomena like poplar fluff (pukh), and while damaging weather isn't unknown, as seen with the deadly windstorm in May 2017, this level of May snowfall after a mild winter is a significant departure from typical patterns. These observations collectively point towards increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather affecting the region.