The city sits in the middle of a continental plain, with no sea and no mountains to moderate anything, and its climate table reflects that with an uncommon brutality. The annual mean is 3.9 degrees, but that figure describes no real month: it is the average of two extremes that barely touch.
01 Ninety-three degrees
The extremes, side by side: the series' cold record is −51.6 degrees, recorded in January, and the heat record 41.6, in July. Between the two there are 93.2 degrees of range, a spread very few capitals in the world reach and which explains why everything here — clothing, buildings, timetables — is designed for two different situations.
02 Five months below zero
It is better told with the highs than the lows, because it is more eloquent: there are five months — November to March — whose average maximum temperature is below zero. January stays at −10.3 for the high and −18.7 for the low; February at −8.8 and −18.0. That is not a cold snap: it is the city's normal state for almost half the year.
The practical consequence is that winter is not fought: it is organised around. Life moves indoors, journeys are shortened and everything that can be connected under cover is. For the traveller, that means a winter trip here is an indoor trip, and it has to be planned on that basis from the start.
03 Spring lasts three weeks
Here is the calendar's most striking feature and the one that catches most people out. March has an average high of −1.5 degrees and April 12.2: almost fourteen degrees of jump in a single month. There is no long transition as in an Atlantic climate; there is a change of state.
From an average high of −1.5 in March to 12.2 in April. Spring here is not a season: it is one particular week.
The same happens at the other end, in reverse: October has a high of 10.4 degrees and November −1.3. That is, autumn also lasts four weeks. In practice the year divides into a five-month winter, a four-month summer and two very short transitions you have to time almost by the week.
04 Summer is short and very good
The good news is that summer makes up for it. From May to August average highs run from 20.9 to 26.6 degrees and lows from 8.2 to 14.9: a comfortable range, with cool nights and very long days thanks to the latitude. And the year's total rainfall is modest, 337.3 millimetres, so it is not a humid summer either.
One nuance decides between July and August. July has the year's highest maximum, 26.6, but it is also by far the wettest month: 55.8 millimetres, almost double August's, which stays at 31.3 with only a degree less on the high. If the trip depends on being outdoors, August is the better bet.
05 The verdict
June, by a small margin over August. It combines a high of 25.8 degrees and a low of 13.4, very long days, 40.0 millimetres of rain spread out and the surrounding steppe still green from May's moisture, a spectacle that does not last long. August is the alternative if you prefer less rain and accept slightly cooler nights.
And a warning worth more than any advice: do not come in March thinking it is spring. At an average high of −1.5 degrees, March here is a full winter month, and the difference from April is fourteen degrees. In this city, bringing the trip forward by three weeks can mean changing season.
