Global boiling fuels disasters in nuclear nations - Masters: "The Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 continues.... Thousands of deaths, severe fires, and the threat of radioactive contamination"

Prior to this year, the hottest temperature in Moscow's history was 37.2°C (99°F), set in August 1920. The Moscow Observatory has now matched or exceeded this 1920 all-time record five times in the past eleven days, including today….

… soil moisture in some portions of European Russia has dropped to levels one would expect only once every 500 years.

That's meteorologist Jeff Masters writing about "One of the most remarkable weather events of my lifetime."  The impact of the decline in soil...