Russia’s Winterkill Potential Rises In Absence of Snow Cover
By Drew Lerner
Kansas City, December 30 (World Weather Inc.) – Snow fell this week in a stripe from the heart of Belarus through the northeastern one-fourth of Ukraine to a part of Russia’s Southern Region. The snow was timely and should help protect winter wheat and rye from any risk of damaging cold. However, to the immediate northeast of this region there is a broad band of snow free conditions that will also be subjected to 
extreme low temperatures in the positive and negative single digits Fahrenheit over the balance of this week and into the weekend. The cold will threaten damage to wheat in the region and a close monitoring of the situation is warranted.
A strong surface high pressure center that is 1044 millibars in intensity today was located over the Baltic States and was pushing much colder air into western Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States. The high pressure center will be over western Ukraine and northwestern Russia today before relocating to the north in far northwestern Russia Friday and Saturday. The center of the high will reach 1048 millibars which is impressive enough to assure some very cold air will be present in the region. However, the position of the high will see to it that the air stays moving through the snow free region of southwestern Russia and that may help hold the temperatures up a little bit late this week and into the weekend. There is also some potential for cloud cover and some occasional snow flurries or snow showers. These conditions will help limit the decent of temperatures, but with that said, the airmass will be impressively cold enough to send negative single digit readings southward into the snow free region raising the potential for winterkill. If cloudiness remains through the cold period and some light snow does occur it might help to reduce the extent of damage, but without a more meaningful accumulation of snow there is still potential for damage.
Most of the winter crops in the region were favorably established this autumn, but a general lack of snow cover and limited bouts of serious cold so far this season may have the crop a little more vulnerable to the cold than usual. World Weather, Inc. anticipates some damage will be possible, but assessing the situation will not be complete until the spring growing season begins.
Friday through Sunday will be coldest and then temperatures will moderate next week. The surface high pressure center always stays north of the winterkill potential region, but the airmass may still be too cold to avoid at least some negative impact on crops in the region.
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