English and Russian Weather

“Other countries have a climate; in England we have weather”. This statement, often made by Englishmen to describe the special meteorological conditions of their country, is both typical and true. In no country other than England can one experience four seasons in the course of a single day. Day may break as a mild spring morning; an hour or so later black clouds may have appeared from nowhere and the rain may be pouring down. At midday conditions may be really wintry with the temperature down by about 15 degrees. And then, in the late afternoon, the sky will clear, the sun will begin to shine and for an hour or two before darkness falls, it will be summer. You can never be quite sure what the weather is going to be like.

Winters in England are not cold and the usual temperature is about zero.  The weather in December is warmer than in January, which is the coldest month of the year. February is a very wet month. It often rains and it seldom snows. 

The best time of the year is spring and early summer. Then the cold winds and the fog and the heavy rains have all gone and the sun is warm and bright. Clouds are continually floating across the sky, and after the rain we see a magnificent rainbow. But in spite of many beautiful days and warm sunshine May is often a treacherous month owing to the cold east winds and frosts.

It seldom gets unbearably hot in summer as there is generally a cooling breeze from the South-West, but nevertheless the temperature may rise to 32 degrees in the shade. June is one of the finest of the months. The flowers are in full bloom this month. In July we are likely to have thunderstorms and August is a hot dry month.

Autumn is the season of mist, of windy days, of beautiful sunsets and miserable chilly days when it drizzles. About the middle of October a spell of particularly fine weather often occurs. This is called the Indian Summer.

The English often grumble about the weather but you should not pay too much attention to an Englishman’s complaints about his own climate. The devil is not so black as he is painted.

Russia is one of the largest countries of the world. There are different types of climate in the various regions of Russia. It is very cold in Yakutia even in summer. Central Russia has mild climate: winters are quite cold, springs and autumns are cool and wet, summers are hot. In Krasnodarsky Region the temperature is above zero all year round, even in winter. Summer is really hot there. In some locations the climate is subtropical. Russia's weather varies from extremely cold to extremely hot. The climate of Siberia is continental: summers are hot and dry and winters are cold and windy. Northeastern Siberia is one of the coldest regions in the world. January temperatures there average below -46 °C and the average July temperature in this region is 16 °C, but it may rise to 38 °C.