Exchanging swimsuits for snow boots.
Heavy rain in the town of Zlatoust in Russia’s South Urals on Sunday, July 12, suddenly gave way to a blizzard.
“It wasn’t just rain and snow, but real snowfall with snowflakes as white as during winter,” ITAR-TASS quotes an eyewitness, Valery Semyannikov, as saying.
Snowdrifts piled up on the roads as the abnormal summer snowstorm hit the region. Siberia also witnessed a downpour of giant hailstones.
Similarly on Saturday, residents of Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk, in Russia’s eastern Ural region, were taken aback when it suddenly started snowing … in the middle of summer. Photos and videos on social networks show snow-covered green grass in the middle of July.
Hail the size of golf balls in Novosibirsk
Also on Saturday, the eastern Siberian city of Novosibirsk witnessed an unusual downpour of hailstones. Local media reported some to be the size of golf balls or hen eggs.
A video on YouTube shows the usual summer scenes of beachgoers enjoying themselves while swimming, sunbathing, and playing games.
A few seconds later, the weather suddenly changes – strong winds start blowing and tearing of branches off nearby trees. The sky goes dark and freakishly large balls of hail start shooting from the sky.
The beach was covered with a white sheet of hail just one minute after the storm started.
A scared female voice can be heard saying “If we die, I love you.”
In some parts of Siberia, summer temperatures are similar to the Mediterranean.
Local media reported snowdrifts along roads, adding that the temperature dropped from over 20C (68F) to almost zero on Saturday.
http://rt.com/news/172468-freaky-snow-urals-siberia/
Shows photo of a bride -in her white gown – traipsing through the snow:
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_07_13/Snow-falls-in-South-Urals-in-mid-summer-1564/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/10964493/Freak-hail-storm-hits-beach-goers.html
In Polish:
http://wiadomosci.onet.pl/swiat/gradobicie-na-plazy-w-nowosybirsku/81ve6
In Russian:
http://www.newsru.com/russia/13jul2014/leto.html
Thanks to Georg Schmidt Weymans, Adoni, Cooper, Craig Adkins and R.A. for these links