# Greatest temperature extremes you've experienced... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 20, 2007, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794 "2007-05-20T06:38:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shamozzle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shamozzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shamozzle)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/1 "2007-05-20T06:38:58Z")
What’s the hottest and coldest temperature you’ve personally experienced? Me, Hottest: 48C/118F Palmyra, Syria Coldest: -45C/-49F Central BC, Canada You? ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/2 "2007-05-20T06:45:33Z")
[QUOTE=Shamozzle] Coldest: -45C/-49F Central BC, Canada [/QUOTE] Before windchill? Hottest: Ummm…somewhere just above 100 F, I’m guessing. Just up here in the northeast US. Coldest: somewhere around -30 F (before windchill) in Saranac Lake, NY. (More than once it was the coldest spot in the lower 48 states while I was living there.) ---
**Author:** ![Shamozzle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shamozzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shamozzle)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/3 "2007-05-20T06:48:44Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] Before windchill? Hottest: Ummm…somewhere just above 100 F, I’m guessing. Just up here in the northeast US. Coldest: somewhere around -30 F (before windchill) in Saranac Lake, NY. (More than once it was the coldest spot in the lower 48 states while I was living there.) [/QUOTE] Right, forgot Yes, before windchill. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/4 "2007-05-20T06:51:46Z")
–26 F (it was a Sunday, and we still went to church), and 105 F, both in Wisconsin. ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/5 "2007-05-20T07:32:26Z")
Hottest: 116F Phoenix, AZ Coldest: -20F Northern Minnesota Hey, I’m from Santa Barbara. These are extreme temperatures for me! ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/6 "2007-05-20T07:34:40Z")
116F in Tucson, AZ. Surprisingly not that hellish as long as you aren’t out in the sun. 11F in Tucson, AZ. Who knew it got so cold in Tucson? Sucked to be a Hawaii boy since I wasn’t prepared at all. I may have been in colder temperatures but I don’t recall any exact numbers. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/7 "2007-05-20T07:56:22Z")
Once, in Chicago, I took a shower and apparently didn’t dry my hair all that well. Crossing the street, I thought there was a twig in my hair…it was a frozen hair in less than a minute, and I broke a hair off my head! That was a cold day. Now I live in Las Vegas…hot can be really hot…I can remember 120 degrees in the shade…but it is a dry heat, unlike the horrors of Illinois humidity with 85 degrees - and there are few and far mosquitoes here as well, so I can deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/8 "2007-05-20T08:04:55Z")
-20 degrees Fahrenheit / -28.888 degrees Celsius in Columbine, Colorado Unoffically, 113 degrees Fahrenheit / 45 degrees Celsius here in Bangkok last month. I say unofficially, because BBC was reporting the temp as 45C, but the official reading, wherever they take that, was only 40-42. We did have our hottest day in 47 years last month at 44.something Celsius upcountry, the official reading. But no one doubts we’ve hit 45 in the city, especially this year. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/9 "2007-05-20T08:16:52Z")
Biggest same-day (natural) temperature difference for me was visiting the Lava Beds National Monument in California last July during that killer heat wave. It was somewhere around 105F (40C) on the surface in the shade, and down in the bottom of some of the lava tubes it was closer to 60F (15C); there was ice down at the bottom of one of them. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/10 "2007-05-20T08:33:07Z")
-40F Norilsk, Siberia; 130F Hillah, Iraq ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/11 "2007-05-20T08:33:45Z")
Coldest: -25C/-13F one Christmas Eve while driving through Østerdalen, Norway. That was the day I changed my infant son’s diaper on the backseat of our Toyota, with my husband standing behind me in the open doorframe with a wool blanket. You’d be amazed how quickly you can change a ten-month-old’s diaper if you are sufficiently motivated. Hottest: I know I’ve experienced 106F/41C several times in Pennsylvania. You desert types can laugh, but remember, this is with about 300% humidity. I have no particular desire to extend either extreme :eek: ---
**Author:** ![George\_Kaplin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@George\_Kaplin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/George_Kaplin)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/12 "2007-05-20T09:01:54Z")
Coldest - 22F/-5C - London, England. Hottest - 122F/50C - Seville, Spain. First day in Seville I made the damn near fatal mistake of going out without water in what transpired was the natives Siesta time. I nearly died of dehydration in an hour. Luckily the shops reopened before I got too bad. ---
**Author:** ![Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Full_Metal_Lotus)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/13 "2007-05-20T11:26:18Z")
- 44 c (Lindale Alberta, Canada, Dec 11, 1977) 41 c (British Columbia Interior, 1994) FML ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/14 "2007-05-20T11:55:13Z")
Coldest natural: Transhimalaya, Tibet -20 C (-5 F) plus windchill of goodness knows how much. Coldest artificial: Shuttle food storage room, Johnson Space Center, TX: -40 C (-40 F). Hottest: Dubai, 45 C (113 F) ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/15 "2007-05-20T12:10:00Z")
Hottest I can remember is 122 degrees somewhere in the American Southwest. Needles, maybe? I do recall it being 85 degrees in needles just after midnight one day. Coldest without wind chill would be somewhere in the -40s in the northern tier. South Dakota or Montana or something. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/16 "2007-05-20T12:12:39Z")
+126 degrees F, Death Valley, CA -44 degrees F, Cable, WI ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/17 "2007-05-20T12:38:29Z")
I forgot to mention hottest artificial: Széchenyi Fúrdo baths, Budapest, Hungary. Steam room. 70 C (158 F). I lasted about five minutes before retiring to the 55 C (131 F) sauna, which actually felt cool in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/18 "2007-05-20T13:02:21Z")
110 F outside in Winston-Salem NC (the shop we were working in was more like 120) -25 on the Maine turnpike (and that was the cars thermometer, which usually read warmer than reality) ---
**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/19 "2007-05-20T13:11:12Z")
[QUOTE=Jeff] Biggest same-day (natural) temperature difference for me was visiting the Lava Beds National Monument in California last July during that killer heat wave. It was somewhere around 105F (40C) on the surface in the shade, and down in the bottom of some of the lava tubes it was closer to 60F (15C); there was ice down at the bottom of one of them. [/QUOTE] Mérida, Venezuela (about 25C) by cable car to the summit of Pico Bolivar (just under 5000m) where the temp was around zero and it was snowing. Hottest I’ve experienced is over 40C in the Sinai desert and Seville in Spain, the coldest maybe -20C in NYC. ---
**Author:** ![GawnFishin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@GawnFishin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GawnFishin)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/20 "2007-05-20T13:15:08Z")
Hottest of 49C Birdsville Queensland Australia Coldest -52C Amos Quebec Canada [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794.md?page=2)