The fierce blizzard shut the Vnukovo airport to all incoming flights on Thursday.
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Moscow Stuck in a Fierce Blizzard
Thursday’s blizzard in Moscow was the heaviest this winter, brining the traffic to a standstill and shutting airports to incoming flights. Weather forecasters say a real winter has finally come to Moscow Region.
A cyclone from southern Europe swept through central Russia late Wednesday night, brining a large amount of snow to Moscow, Leonid Starkov from the Fobos forecast center reported. The snow blanket reached 10 to 15 centimeters by Thursday night.
The cyclone nearly brought all Moscow airports south off the city to a halt. 20 incoming flights from the Vnukovo airport were redirected to airports in Nizhny Novgorod, Cherepovets, Voronezh, Yaroslavl and St. Petersburg. Domodedovo was unable to have five flights grounded.
The blizzard caused chaos on Moscow roads, first jams appearing at city borders at 8 am. The traffic reached a grid-lock at the evening as municipal services were too slow to clear the snow.
The snowfall is expected to be over by Friday morning. “The cyclone will leave, the snow will cease and cold Artic air will follow from the north,” Mr. Starkov told Kommersant. “The temperature will fall to -13 - -15°Ñ.” Normal winter weather will have eventually set in.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 26, 2007
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