Tatarstan residents put on skis with the coming of snow. For how long?

Snow kicks off alpine and cross-country skiing season

Snowy weather has settled in Tatarstan since early last week — moreover, at a good pace. A morning snowstorm on Monday became a cause of big and numerous traffic jams in Kazan. Cold weather came together with the snow — ice crossings opened in Tatarstan again.

The snow also helped Copper Mountain ski resort in Kukmor open. As co-founder of the resort Ilyas Ibyatov told Realnoe Vremya, the ski resort managed to open only a week earlier, the resort hadn’t been working. Now there is a flow of clients.

Generally speaking, the skiing season in Tatarstan opened later because of the warm weather — 2-3 weeks later on average.

Head of the Skiing Federation of the Republic of Tatarstan Sergey Pasechnik noted that it was possible to go skiing during the warm weather in the republic’s ski resorts — the slopes were covered with artificial snow made by cannons. But real snow encouraged the citizens of Kazan even more. “There wasn’t enthusiasm, and now it is the winter that skiers understand,” he adds.

Companies renting skis noticed an inflow of clients too, though insignificant at the moment. Rental owner in the Swan Lake Ayrat Gazizyanov said that the first wave of visitors was on the New Year holidays, of course, the second one is now.

Kazan citizens put sledges on sale because of warm weather

The warm beginning of winter almost put paid to a possibility of skiing — Kazan citizens even began to sell their sports equipment. As analysts of Avito said, the number of offers of skis and sledges during warm weather in the city significantly rose. For instance, supply for goods in section Winter Sports increased by 22% from 1 December 2019 to 22 January 2020. There were more people who wanted to sell their sledges (67%) and snowboards (52%).

However, the demand for such goods from citizens of Kazan has reduced. Tubings and sledges are 66% less popular this year than in 2019. Only skates and plastic sledges are gaining in popularity this year, their demand has risen by more than 6%.

February will be warm again

At the same time, the temperature will go up again soon. The temperature on the last day of January in Tatarstan was +2, at night it was 0... -5 degrees, reads a message of the Hydrometeorological Centre. Nevertheless, snow was expected on this day in the republic.

Abnormally warm February was expected across Russia, including in the Volga region, this is a forecast of Fobos centre. According to it, the temperature will be 2-4 degrees above the average.

Honourable meteorologist of the Russian Federal Roza Shafikov talked about the weather in February in detail. According to her, there will be rises in the temperature again. So it would snow on the first days of the month, a snowstorm is expected again. The temperature at night would be from -2 to -7, and at night it would be from 0 to -5 degrees.

A wave of cold weather will reign during the second week, while it will snow just in some places. The temperature will go down — -10… -15 at night and 5-10 degrees below zero at daytime. Later, cloudy weather is expected until the middle of the month, it will snow, rain and snow, the daytime temperature can be above zero.

The third decade will be marked for not very cold and temperate freezing cold weather. The daytime temperature will be 3-8 degrees below zero, it will freeze at night to -9 and -14 and to -17-19 degrees at clear nights. And February will end with warm weather again.