13 July 2014. Only in Russia! Snow in the Urals in Mid-July

This image is from late April… another unseasonal time for snow, but less unusual than mid-July

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On Sunday, heavy rain in the town of Zlatoust in the South Urals suddenly gave way to a blizzard in a rare twist of weather for the summer. ITAR-TASS quoted Valery Semyannikov, an eyewitness, as saying, “It wasn’t just rain and snow, but real snowfall with snowflakes as white as during winter. It melted quickly, of course. A fantastic sight”. In some areas of Chelyabinsk Oblast, snow lay 5-10 centimetres (@ 2-4 inches) thick. It’s the first-ever mid-summer snowfall in the South Urals. The Chelyabinsk weather service predicted “wet and windy weather with moderate to heavy rain throughout the region, thunderstorms and soft hail in the east and ice hail in the mountains”.

13 July 2014

Voice of Russia World Service

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_07_13/Snow-falls-in-South-Urals-in-mid-summer-1564/

Editor:

“This is Siberia, but even we don’t get snow in July!” I’ll betcha that this one woke up more than one sleepyhead (not to mention more than one, “I’ll never drink that much again, no sir!”). Even Siberia has a summer (and a rather hot one at that)…

BMD

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1 October 2013. Sergei Yolkin’s World. Asteroids are Coming More Frequently

Asteroids are Coming More Frequently

Sergei Yolkin

2013

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An asteroid similar in size and parameters to the superbolide meteor that almost hit Chelyabinsk flew past the Earth, coming within 11,000 kilometres (6,836 miles) of its surface. Sergei Yolkin thought that was a rad occurrence.

30 September 2013

Sergei Yolkin

RIA-Novosti

http://ria.ru/caricature/20130930/966802651.html

Probable Fragments of Chelyabinsk Meteorite Lifted From Lake

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On Thursday, the Chelyabinsk Oblast Radiation and Environmental Safety Ministry said in an online statement that divers lifted five rocks from a Ural Mountain lake thought to be fragments of the meteorite that exploded in February near Chelyabinsk. Now, the fragments, ranging from 10 to 30 centimetres (4-12 inches) in diameter, will go to scientists for a thorough examination. Scientists estimate that the entire meteorite weighed 10,000 metric tons (11,023 US tons). Divers tried to fish out a huge chunk… thought to weigh several hundred kilos (661 pounds)… buried under a 2.5-metre (8.2 feet) layer of silt at the bottom of Lake Chebarkul. Currently, searchers are pumping silt out of the lakebed to free that piece and possibly find others. Aleksandr Galichin, the Environment Ministry’s head, said that he believes that they’d recover the large chunk by 4 October. The meteorite exploded on 15 February, leaving about 1,500 people injured, mostly due to glass shattered by the shockwave. Scientists said that the space rock was ordinary chondrite, a stony non-metallic meteorite.

26 September 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://www.en.rian.ru/science/20130926/183754123/Probable-Fragments-of-Chelyabinsk-Meteorite-Lifted-From-Lake.html

Huge Chunk of Meteorite Located in Urals Lake

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On Friday, a scientist said that a huge fragment of meteorite that slammed into the Urals region in February was located on the bottom of Chebarkul Lake in Chelyabinsk Oblast. On 15 February, a meteorite landed with a massive boom that blew out windows and damaged thousands of buildings around the Urals city of Chelyabinsk, injuring 1,200 people in the area. The meteorite broke into approximately seven large fragments, and one of them is believed to have fallen into Chebarkul Lake, forming a hole in the ice about eight metres (26.25 feet) in diameter. In late March, a radar probe of the bottom of the lake revealed a crater possibly created by a fragment of a meteorite.

Viktor Grokhovsky, a senior researcher with Ural Federal University, was amongst the scientists who measured the magnetic field in the area where a meteorite chunk presumably fell. He said that the measurements indicated that an object, most likely a meteorite fragment about 60 centimetres (23 2/3 inches) in diameter and weighting approximately 300 kilos (661 lbs), is lying on the bottom of the Chebarkul Lake. He added that an eyewitness caught on camera how the meteorite exploded above the lake and apparently crashed through the ice, sending a massive jet of water into the air. He said, “[If] we have [a meteorite-like] substance, we have a hole in the ice, and a jet of water which was observed shortly after the explosion, what other proofs are needed? The [meteorite] fall, followed by a jet of water, was caught on camera”. The head of the Chebarkul urban area administration, Andrei Orlov, told journalists that sonar scans in the same area show an unidentified object measuring up to six metres (19.7 feet) in diameter at the bottom of the lake.

22 June 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130622/181805477/Huge-Chunk-of-Meteorite-Located-in-Urals-Lake—Scientist.html