A shorter snowfall season associated with higher air temperatures over northern Eurasia
The temperature sensitivity of the snowfall season (start, end, duration) over northern Eurasia (the former USSR) is analyzed from synoptic records of 547 stations from 1966 to 2000. The results find significant correlations between temperature and snowfall season at approximately 56% of stations (61% for the starting date and 56% for the ending date) with a mean snowfall season duration temperature sensitivity of 6:2 days C 1 split over the start (2.8 days) and end periods ( 3:4 days). Temperature sensitivity was observed to increase with stations’ mean seasonal air temperature, with the strongest relationships at locations of around 6 C temperature. This implies that increasing air temperature in fall and spring will delay the onset and hasten the end of snowfall events, and reduces the snowfall season length by 6.2 days for each degree of increase. This study also clarifies that the increasing trend in snowfall season length during 1936/37‐1994 over northern European Russia and central Siberia revealed in an earlier study is unlikely to be associated with warming in spring and fall seasons.