Weather records
Have you ever wanted to visit the hottest or coldest place in the world? Read on to find destinations that have set weather records.
Understand
While for the most part, temperatures stay at least fairly close to averages, in some regions of Earth, especially inland regions, world records can be broken and they often far exceed temperatures and other weather conditions found in most of the rest of the world. Biomes like deserts and polar regions are often the best for record-breaking weather conditions, but they are also very remote in most cases.
Records
Temperatures
- While there are a couple of other places that may have experienced hotter weather in the past, the place probably most associated with extreme heat is 1 Furnace Creek, Death Valley (Hottest place on Earth). Its elevation below sea level and location in the California deserts means that it has the hottest general weather and quite possibly the highest recorded temperature (the highest temperature ever recorded is a debated topic). Accessibility: easy.
- Excluding unofficial temperature measurements, the coldest temperature ever reached was in 2 Vostok, East Antarctica (Coldest recorded temperature). The lowest natural temperature ever directly recorded at ground level on Earth is −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F; 184.0 K) at this Russian-controlled station on July 21, 1983 by ground measurements. Accessibility: very difficult.
- For great temperature variations between summer and winter, go to another place where you'd love to live 3 Pole of Cold (Largest temperature differences between summer and winter; lowest temperature record excluding Antarctica). The Russian Far East gets Western Russia's share of extremely cold weather, but can also get pretty warm during the summer months. Accessibility: difficult.