Regardless of where you live most of the year, I’m sure you know what it’s like to be cold. All of us in the winter season are used to taking all our warm clothes out of the closet to be able to go outside and not end up freezing in the attempt. Now, the Earth is such a big place that there are places where really low temperatures are recorded, and in this article we are going to tell you where it was recorded, in fact, the lowest of all.
We are all used to checking the weather whenever we go outside in winter to see how much warm clothing we have to take with us, but in these places that you will be able to see in this article, it does not matter. The temperatures recorded in them are far from what we know and, in fact, the lowest of all could end the life of a human being in a few minutes if he is not properly dressed.
Antarctica, the coldest continent
As you could imagine, the coldest place on the entire Earth could not be other than Antarctica. This continent is the driest, coldest and highest of all the earth, with an average height of more than 2,000 meters above sea level. If we talk about the average temperature on this continent, it is clear that even the highest will “freeze us”. In the coastal areas of Antarctica, an average of -10 °C is recorded, while in the highest areas of the interior of the continent we are going to find an average of -60 °C, a challenge for anyone.
If we talk about the lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth, we have to go back to 1983, specifically to July 21 of that year. At that time it was when the lowest temperature was officially recorded on our planet. Some researchers working at the Vostok station (more than 1000 kilometers from the South Pole) recorded a temperature of nothing more and nothing less than -89.2 ° C, quite outrageous.
Vostok Station (Source: Wikipedia)
As we say, this is the lowest temperature officially recorded, but there is another even lower temperature that is usually taken into account as an unofficial record. This occurred at a point in East Antarctica known as Dome Argus, and was captured through satellites. The temperature recorded by these was -98 °C, although as we say it is not usually taken into account officially.
Oymyakon, the coldest inhabited place
As we told you, the lowest temperature recorded in history was in Antarctica, but we are talking about a continent that is not inhabited. If we talk about inhabited places, the place that registered the lowest temperature was Oymyakon, a small town in Siberia. This registered in 1933 a minimum temperature of -67.8 °C, although as a general rule it usually has a minimum temperature of about -55 °C.
Living here can be a real odyssey. We’re talking about a place where freshly caught fish can freeze in a matter of seconds, or where gasoline in motors can freeze if vehicle engines are turned off. Interestingly, Oymyakon means “water that does not freeze”, and it is because there are hot springs around the town that prevent the Indirgika River from freezing.
