A powerful winter thunderstorm lashed the Ural Mountains region of Russia on Friday morning, with officials and media outlets reporting that high winds ripped off the roofs of buildings and caused power outages in several regions.
Videos and photos circulating on social media captured blizzard conditions in Yekaterinburg, the capital of the Sverdlovsk region, with strong winds ripping off roofs and sending debris flying through the air.
“Winter arrived in Yekaterinburg with gusty winds, heavy snowfall and a thunderstorm, which the Yekaterinburg weather station recorded at 10 a.m. local time,” the Sverdlovsk region’s weather service Uralhydromet said in a statement.
Meteorologists said a low-pressure system drove a cold front through the Ural mountain range, dropping temperatures below freezing and turning rain into snow.
Partial blackouts were reported in at least 12 towns with a total population of around 90,000, according to the Emergency Situations Ministry’s regional branch, which said outages were concentrated mostly in the southeastern part of the Sverdlovsk region.
One person was reportedly killed in a highway traffic accident due to icy road conditions. Officials did not immediately confirm the death.
Yekaterinburg’s main railway station was also damaged, the news outlet Ostorozhno Novosti reported. It said the neighboring Chelyabinsk and Perm regions also reported heavy snowfall, partial blackouts and roofs damaged by strong winds.
Meteorologists said they expect the low-pressure system to move north along the Ural mountain range throughout Friday, spreading blizzards across the northern Sverdlovsk region and leaving behind freezing temperatures with icy roads before weakening over the weekend.
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