MOSCOW, March 1. /TASS/. This winter has been the warmest in Moscow over all the years of record keeping, beating last winter’s record of average temperatures for three months by 2.5 degrees Celsius, Roman Vilfand, lead researcher of Russia's weather forecasting agency, told TASS.

Russia has been regularly recording weather data over the past 140 years, he said.

"This winter was super warm in Moscow. Until now, the record set 59 years ago was not broken, when the average temperature was minus 2.8 degrees Celsius from December 1, 1960 to February 29, 1961. Now [monthly average] temperatures are up about 2.5 degrees Celsius," he said.

Vilfand called this record unbelievable, since a huge gap between the records is an extremely rare phenomenon. Typically, temperature records are set in the hundredths of a degree, he said.

"We can state with confidence that there will not be a warmer winter for a long period of time," he said.