Moscow Breaks Heat Record as Wildfire Smoke Lingers
July 28 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg's Olivia Sterns reports on forest fires in Russia which are raising concerns over higher food prices and an increase in the rate of inflation. (Source: Bloomberg)
Moscow set a heat record for the second time in a week as the Russian capital remained wrapped in smoke from wildfires on dry peat bogs east of the city.
The temperature in Moscow reached 37.8 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) at 4 p.m. today, exceeding the record of 37.5 degrees set on July 26, Irina Smetanina, spokeswoman for Gidromettsentr, the state weather service, said by telephone. The July 26 reading was the hottest since records began 130 years ago.
Moscow also broke the record for electricity consumption -- 11,623 megawatts -- at 2 p.m. today, Interfax reported, citing Vitaly Strugovets, a spokesman for Moscow United Electric Grid Company. It was the third such record during the current heat wave, the news service reported.
Firefighters are battling 340 blazes across Russia covering 86,658 hectares (214,136 acres) amid a drought that led the government to declare weather-related emergencies in 23 crop- producing regions. Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik said on July 23 that the drought had damaged 10.1 million hectares, or 32 percent of all land under cultivation.
Russia has milled 33 million metric tons of grain, including 24.6 million tons of wheat, in the year to date, though yields fell to 23.2 centners per hectare from 28.5 centners a year earlier, the Agriculture Ministry said on its website today. A centner is equal to 100 kilograms.
Wheat Stocks
World wheat stockpiles will decline by the end of June as drought damages crops in Russia and Kazakhstan, the International Grains Council said, slashing an outlook for higher inventories.
Stocks will drop to 192 million metric tons at the end of the 2010-11 crop year from 197 million tons at the end of June this year, the London-based council said in a monthly report today.
Forty-two fires broke out in Russia overnight in peat bogs drained for agriculture during the Soviet era, including 39 in central Russia, according to the Emergency Situations Ministry. All but two of the fires were extinguished.
Since the start of the fire season, 950,457 hectares have burned, the ministry said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ilya Khrennikov in Moscow at ikhrennikov@bloomberg.net
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