Hundreds of fires raged in eastern Russia and Siberia over the weekend. On Sunday, Russia’s Emergency Ministry reported that around 100,000 hectares were ablaze. The flare-up follows devastating fires that struck western Russia last summer. Those fires began in the wake of an extended heat wave generated by an unusual blocking high that disrupted the jet stream and left the region parched for weeks.
Bill Lau of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has investigated the nature of last summer’s blocking high and found evidence that the same weather system produced downpours in Pakistan that led to record-breaking flooding in that region.
