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On This Day: Coldest Temperature Ever Recorded

July 20, 2020 at 03:04 PM EDT
By WeatherBug Sr. Meteorologist, James West
The Vostok Research Station from a 2001 file photo. (NOAA)

Although many American’s are sweating through middle-summer heat, a shivering world record was set on this day in 1983.

On July 21, 1983, the Vostok station in Antarctica, a Russian research station located about 808 miles from the south Pole in the middle of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, recorded a bone-chilling temperature of minus-128.6 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the lowest ground-level temperature measurement on Earth.

The previous lowest temperature record was minus-126.9 degrees Fahrenheit at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station on August 24, 1960. 

Antarctica has the perfect conditions to produce the coldest temperatures on Earth. Sitting at the southern pole and with most of the continent within the Antarctic circle, it has two seasons, a summer filled with long days with little to no nighttime and the winter months of April through August being completely dark at the South Pole. 

Additionally, Antarctica’s vast and thick ice sheet reflects the summer sunlight back into the space, keeping summertime temperatures well below freezing. Additionally, many of the interior research stations are located several thousand feet above sea level, with the Vostok station that recorded the coldest reading sitting at more than 11,000 feet above sea-level. These higher elevations, with their dry air thanks to being far removed from open ocean water, contribute to the cold temperatures.

Conversely, the hottest temperature on record was in Furnace Creek, located in Death Valley, Calif., on July 10, 1913, when the temperature reached 134.1 degrees. That is a 261-degree swing between the coldest and hottest temperatures ever recorded on Earth.

Even though 134 degrees is hot, weather historians continue to debate the historic accuracy of the Furnace Creek readings due to possible instrumentation errors. The previous hottest temperature record, 135.4 degrees recorded on September 13, 1922, in El Azizia, Libya, was invalidated by the World Meteorological Organization in 2012, due to possible instrumentation issues and inexperienced human observations, amongst other things.

Surviving the oppressive heat of July can be quite the sweating ordeal, but just remember, Antarctica is in the middle of its winter and is probably well below zero degrees.

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