MOSCOW () -- Moscow, normally under a thick blanket of snow by now, is experiencing its warmest winter on record, and the weather will stay mild for the first weeks of December, the Russian Meteorological Center said Monday.


"Temperatures in November were on average 5.5 degrees higher than usual," said Mark Naischuller, head of the center's scientific research department.


In the past 117 years -- since records have been regularly kept -- snow cover has never come later than Dec. 1 to the center of the Russian capital.


Naischuller said the average temperature this November was 3.0 degrees Celsius, compared with the customary minus 2.5 degrees Celsius.