#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Two strong thunderstorms hit Norilsk on the same day. No sooner had the city sailed out of the night shower with thunder and lightning than in the second half of the day the skies over Norilsk opened up again.
Meteorologists at the beginning of summer predicted unprecedented precipitation for the Krasnoyarsk region with thunderstorms and abundant water flows. However, this did not correlate much with Taimyr and Norilsk, since, according to many years of observations, strong thunderstorms are an infrequent phenomenon here.
Reality exceeded expectations. As soon as the city was a little free of water after the night elements riot, when every respectable cat in the houses of the Norilsk people tried to hide away from the thunder, after dinner the scenario repeated itself.
It turned out that it would not be possible to survive the flood on the streets, and the most prudent citizens laid out real dams to stop the flow of water. Sandbags at the intersection of Moskovskaya street and Leninsky prospect, as well as a man-made dam on Laureatov street, looked like real exotics.
Now it is difficult to talk about the consequences of more frequent thunderstorms and showers for permafrost and housing and communal services. But the morning picture of buckets scooping water from the roof and from the windows of the upper floor of the post office looked really dramatic: the roof leaked and the rooms in the old building were flooded.
Recall that last summer, scientists recorded the longest thunderstorm in the Arctic. In August, Norilsk was covered with a third of the monthly rainfall in a day. Computer simulations have shown that due to climate change, showers in the mountains of the Northern Hemisphere will be more frequent. There is an assumption that in 40 years Norilsk may become a city of rains. The damage from the melting of permafrost in the Arctic over 30 years was estimated at seven trillion rubles.
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Text: Denis Kozhevnikov, Photo: author
