Moscow airports delay or cancel more than 100 flights in storm

NDTV: Moscow international airports on Friday delayed or cancelled more than 100 flights due to stormy weather.

A weather warning issued by the emergencies ministry in Moscow predicted storms and strong winds of more than 50 miles per hour that could topple trees and bring down power lines.

At around 10 pm (1900 GMT), 73 flights were delayed and eight cancelled at Domodedovo airport to the south of the city, according to Yandex search engine's timetable service.

A further 40 flights were delayed and eight cancelled at the northern Sheremetyevo airport while eight were delayed at Vnukovo airport to the west, Yandex said.

Aeroflot carrier, based at Sheremetyevo, on Twitter warned passengers that "currently at Sheremetyevo due to complex weather conditions, flights are being delayed on arrival and departure."...

The control tower at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, shot by DME Airport, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Moscow swelters in record heat

Terra Daily via AFP: Moscow sweltered in unseasonable heat on Sunday, with temperatures of nearly 29 degrees Celsius (84.2 Fahrenheit), a record for April since data collection began 130 years ago, authorities said.

"At 4:00 p.m. (1200 GMT), the temperature reached 28.6 degrees Celsius, an absolute record for the month of April," an official from the Russian capital's weather service told the Interfax news agency. "The previous record for the month goes back to April 24, 1950, with 28 degrees," he added.

The mercury had already climbed to 26.3 degrees on Saturday.

Several central and eastern European countries recorded unseasonably high temperatures on Saturday, with a record 32 degrees recorded in northern Austria....

Burnt grass on Kuusinena Street, in a 2010 Moscow heat wave, shot by NVO, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license