The summer of 2010 saw daytime temperatures reach 38.2°C in Moscow, with little respite at night. Dry conditions led to fires across an area of about one million hectares and crop failures of around 25 per cent; estimates put the total damage at about US$15billion.

An international research team compared the heat wave with that of 2003, widely perceived to be the worst ever experienced in Europe, and published the results in Science. The researchers found that the 2010 heat wave broke records for both its severity and spatial extent. Depending on the time period considered, temperatures were between 6.7°C and 13.3°C above the long-term mean, and were, on average, 0.2°C higher than 2003 over the whole of Europe. Looking back over past records, the researchers found that the summers of 2003 and 2010 were the warmest for 500 years. 

Both heat waves were the result of large, persistent high-pressure systems and associated areas of low pressure to the east and west. In the case of 2010, the heart of the high-pressure system was over Russia; the associated low-pressure system to the east was partly responsible for the extensive flooding in Pakistan.

May 11