Temps there regularly get lower than -50 in the winter and they're having "extreme cold" for them. Article doesn't say what the temps have been, but that sounds really unpleasant.
I think part of the problem is the swinging temperatures as much as the actual cold. There are several different classifications of dzud, and the "iron dzud" in which heavy snowfall melts and then refreezes into a solid layer of ice seems to be what the article is describing. Obviously temperatures anywhere near -50 C are brutally cold regardless, but if everything is covered in a layer of ice then it doesn't even matter if the animals can keep warm because there's nothing they can get at to eat.
Yeah, good point. The article also said that the extreme cold followed a significant drought, so the animals didn't get to build up their usual fat.
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