The Eurasian wheat belt (EWB) spans a region across Eastern Ukraine, Southern Russia, and Northern Kazakhstan; accounting for nearly 15% of global wheat production. We assessed land surface conditions across the EWB during the early growing season (April–May–June; AMJ) leading up to the 2010 Russian heat wave, and over a longer-term period from 2000 to 2010. A substantial reduction in early season values of the normalized difference vegetation index occurred prior to the Russian heat wave, continuing a decadal decline in early season primary production in the region. In 2010, an anomalously cold winter followed by an abrupt shift to a warmer-than-normal early growing season was consistent with a persistently negative phase of the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO). Regression analyses showed that early season vegetation productivity in the EWB is a function of both the winter (December–January–February; DJF) and AMJ phases of the NAO. Land surface anomalies preceding the heat wave were thus consistent with highly negative values of both the DJF NAO and AMJ NAO in 2010.