"First of all, it was long." Meteorologist Sheporenko named the main "irregularities" of the past summer.

      This summer was of an unusual length and had a number of other characteristics that set it apart from previous years. This was reported at a press conference at TASS‑Ural by Galina Sheporenko, the chief forecaster of the Ural Department for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring.

      This summer was less rainy and not cooler than last year, but because the “peak of summer,” July, turned out to be colder than June, it left behind not particularly warm memories, Sheporenko noted. That June proved to be the warmest month, warmer than July, is an atypical situation, she emphasized. Another feature was that the past summer was long — it started earlier and ended later than usual.

      “It began at the end of the final five‑day period of May, about 10 days earlier than usual, and ended on August 27 — a week later than usual. In other words, it lasted more than two weeks longer,” the forecaster noted.

      Two other positives of the past summer, along with its duration, were the absence of drought (a factor appreciated by farmers) and the lack of frosts throughout the summer, even in June (which is very rare in the Urals).

      The average temperature for the summer was +16…+18 °C. At the same time, in July the average temperature in Yekaterinburg was +17.7 °C, which is 1–2 degrees below the norm for that month. A temperature of +25 °C is typical for an Ural summer, but there were no more than 22 such days, which is 5–7 days below normal, the speaker explained.

      There were even fewer days with temperatures above +30 °C — only six in total, and all were in early June. “That was the hottest period. After that, temperatures above 30 degrees were recorded by isolated meteorological stations on individual days,” she said.

      “In addition, frequent rains fell in the last ten days of July, and from the 22nd to the 29th they were almost daily,” Galina Sheporenko reminded.