OREANDA-NEWS. According to Russian weather data, Russia recorded an all-time heat record above the Arctic Circle on Saturday.

The extreme weather in the town of Verkhoyansk comes as Siberia has seen a prolonged heatwave linked to wildfires. The 38 degrees Celsius recorded by the Pogoda i Klimat weather portal in Verkhoyansk on June 20, if accurate, may have set a new record for anywhere in the Arctic Circle, meteorologists say.

The current record high temperature north of the Arctic Circle of 37.8 C was set in Fort Yukon, Alaska, in June 1915. Verkhoyansk holds the Guinness World Record for the highest recorded temperature range of 105 C, fluctuating from minus 68 C to a high of 37 C. The previous temperature record for the isolated town of around 1,300 residents stood at 37.3 C in July 1988.

Russia has just experienced its warmest winter in 130 years and its capital Moscow broke a 128-year heat record last week.

In Russia, warming is 2.5 times more intense than in the world, said earlier the scientific head of the Russian Hydrometeorological Center Roman Wilfand. Rapid warming threatens to increase the number of dangerous events.

According to scientists, 2020 is expected to rank among the world's five warmest years in recorded history.