The Kamchatka Peninsula was also the site of a major earthquake and tsunami last year.
Heavy snowfall almost paralyzed the town. Many piles of snow reached the 2nd floor of buildings, blocking the entrances. Cars were completely covered in snow, to the point that some were very difficult to find.
AccuWeather weather forecaster Jason Nicholls confirmed: "This heavy snowfall is the result of a strong storm moving in the Sea of Okhotsk, causing heavy snowfall in the southern Kamchatka peninsula on January 14 and 15.
This historic snowfall occurred after a very large amount of snow in December 2025. Ms. Vera Polyakova - Director of the Kamchatka Hydrometeorological Center said: "Similar conditions are extremely rare in modern observation data. The most recent occurrence of a similar phenomenon was more than 50 years ago, in the early 1970s.
In December 2025, snowfall in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky was 3 times higher than the average. In the first half of January 2026 alone, snowfall reached about 150% compared to the multi-year average. After the latest storm, the thickness of the snow layer has reached about 1.7m, while snowpiles are in some places up to 2.4m high, according to Ms. Polyakova.
Social networks are also flooded with artificial intelligence (AI) videos about this snowstorm. Dozens of videos, at first glance quite realistic, have been shared on TikTok and attracted millions of views. Some videos even appeared on major media channels.
Fake news created by AI is not new. Previously, there were many AI images of Hurricane Helene. However, AI video creation software has recently become more sophisticated, strong enough to deceive viewers. Experts assess that the wave of fake videos during this snowfall is considered the most serious ever.
A town of only about 160,000 people, located in a remote area, can hardly create dozens of different angles of a snowstorm, especially angles from high-end phones or drones.
Many videos clearly created by AI show apartment buildings 10 stories high or higher, which is very difficult to find in a small town like Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. When compared on Google Maps, it is very difficult to find buildings over 4 stories high here. This is a sign that the spreading videos may not reflect reality.
Part of the reason why AI videos are easily spread is because very few people know about Kamchatka, so fake content is not detected early.
Some AI videos also make viewers "temporarily forget" the laws of physics. The video is said to record scenes of people skiing from a pile of snow almost covering the entire apartment complex.
Anyone who has ever been exposed to snow knows that when the snow is thick, people will sink, so they have to use skates or shoes to walk on the snow. This AI video shows that skiers move at very high speed while the slope of snow in the video cannot create this speed at all.
