Moscow, January 30, 2026 – The Europe Today: Russia’s capital, Moscow, is experiencing its heaviest snowfall in over two centuries, as meteorologists from Moscow State University reported on Thursday, causing significant disruptions across the city.
Images from Moscow, home to approximately 13 million residents, showed people struggling to navigate streets buried under deep snow, with some areas recording snow piles as high as 60 centimetres. Commuter trains faced delays, and traffic jams stretched across major roads on Thursday evening.
“January has been a cold and unusually snowy month in Moscow,” the university said on social media. By January 29, the Moscow State University Meteorological Observatory recorded nearly 92 mm of precipitation, marking the highest level in 203 years. The observatory attributed the record snowfall to “deep and extensive cyclones with sharp atmospheric fronts passing over the Moscow region.”
While precipitation measures the amount of water that has fallen, accumulated snow often exceeds these measurements, as much of it consists of air, the observatory noted.
Residents expressed surprise at the intensity of the snow. “There was much more snow when I was a kid, but now we practically don’t have any at all,” said Pavel, a 35-year-old bartender in Moscow, speaking to AFP.
Earlier this month, Russia’s far-eastern Kamchatka region declared a state of emergency after a severe snowstorm partially paralyzed its main city. Images widely circulated online showed massive snow piles reaching the second storey of buildings and residents digging paths through roads blocked by snow-covered cars.
The extreme weather in both Moscow and Kamchatka underscores the continuing challenges faced by Russian cities during unusually harsh winter conditions this year.
