While the city hits the record in tourist numbers, it also breaks the record in precipitation. The summer 2016 became one of the worst in history for those loving sunny days, and the worst in the modern, post-Soviet, history of St. Petersburg.
Just like in Great Britain and some other countries, this summer didn’t provide a lot of warm and charming sunny light in Saint Petersburg. Moreover, the sky greeted visitors, which outnumbered results of the last years, by rain and clouds. As the city’s chief synoptic Alexander Kolesov said at a press conference in late August, there were just about 60 sunny days this summer with only 542 sunny hours which 6 sunny hours on a day on average. The summers in St. Petersburg tend to deliver 600-800 sunny hours.
Which is more sadly is that enhanced cloudiness was predictably converted into heavy rains. City residents and many tourists faced showers that caused some kind of flash flood, and, to make things even worse, heavy and rather dangerous winds. Reports about fallen trees and problems in communications and transport repeatedly occurred during the warm period.
Mr Kolesov said that this summer with its 400+ mm of precipitation was the wettest on record in the history of St. Petersburg exceeding the summer of 1998 with its 383 mm. In June, it was 100 mm against the normal level of 57 millimeters, in July – 150 mm (68) and in August more than 150 (76).
Despite a rather attractive reason for a big headline, we think that the chief synoptic is a bit mistaken as the Wikipedia tells us that the wettest summer was in the year of 1928 with its outstanding 451 mm.
Though, the wettest or not, it’s anyway rather sad for most people. You might have thought now why not postpone your visit to St. Petersburg planned for next year? Well, we hope that next year will see an improved picture and will be next to the norm which is just 256 mm. Anyway, don’t forget to read our post about the weather and climate in St. Petersburg.