Siberia bakes with new record temperatures - and busy beaches

Our pictures show sun-seekers in Novosibirsk cooling off in the River Ob, and also at the 'Ob Sea', a huge artificial reservoir close to Siberia's biggest city.

The same scenes have been repeated over many time zones as summer came to the this vast Russian region.

'If it doesn't cool soon, I'll die,' said one beach-lover.

Weather experts said that Siberia, along with some other Russian regions, was between 4C and 6c hotter than usual in June. Such trends have been common in recent years, coupled with warmer winters in some regions, leading to claims of climate change. 

Omsk beat its previous hottest temperatures, hitting 36C, while records were also set at seven meteorological stations in Novosibirsk region.

In Vengeovo, there was a temperature of 35.8 C degrees, compared with the previous high of 32.6 C. In Chistozersky district thermometers reached 37 C degrees, another record. In the city of Novosibirsk the air temperature was 31.5 C, and despite the beach scenes,  it was not a record.

Russian HydroMeteoCentre reports that the first half of 2015 was abnormally hot in Russia and the record of average air temperature was beaten.

Whether or not this is true, Tyva approached 42C in the abnormal heat, though it has recorded such temperatures before - as long ago as 1943.

A pall of smog covered some areas of the mountainous republic as wildfires took hold. The authorities were preparing for evacuation of sick people with breathing problems from hospitals because of the smoke from forest fires, and a state of emergency was announced in the republic. 

In other areas there was unusually heavy rain, for example in the Sakha Republic - Russia's largest region - with rainfall twice as much as usual.