# 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:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/41 "2007-05-21T01:06:50Z")
Since other people have higher highs and lower lows - this was in a 5 month 3 day period in Denver -24F Feb 5th and 103F July 8th 1989 ---
**Author:** ![gladtobeblazed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@gladtobeblazed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gladtobeblazed)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/42 "2007-05-21T02:47:08Z")
Some of my hottest and coldest experiences occured on the same days. I was moving crates of food from a truck to a freezer. Outside it was ~115 F and the freezer I don’t know, somewhere below 0 F. San Joaquin valley, California. ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/43 "2007-05-21T03:14:45Z")
Don’t know about the hottest, 110ish I suppose. Not sure about the coldest either, **BUT** , in Pinedale, WY it was -45. My buddy and me were some 3,000 feet higher up in the Wind River mountains. Even with two -10 bags and all my clothes on it was really, really cold. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/44 "2007-05-21T05:27:10Z")
Blacksburg, Va, January of 1966, -29°F, not counting wind chill, and there was serious wind. Ft. Bragg, NC, August of 1966, 103°F, shade temperature, but there wasn’t any where I was. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/45 "2007-05-21T08:23:56Z")
Hottest, 50ºC+, several summers, inner Spain. I happened to meet one guy whose duty during his military service was metereologist at the Saragossa air base; he told us of reporting “50+” and being told “damn, you morons have let bubbles form in the thermometer again, get a new one”; the temperature would be shown in the news as “45C in the shadow” (they’d admit 48 in the shadow for Seville). I don’t know the exact temperature, but in the summer of 8…2 I think, tar in main street in my home town (100km W of Saragossa, 100km S of Pamplona) melted so badly that it trapped several parked cars :eek: Middlebro fell down on the street in a spot where the tar had melted: he came home with patches of tar on his palms and side, the strip of his red T-shirt that the tar tore off was still visible a couple years ago. Lowest just -10ºC or so, a winter in Germany. ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/46 "2007-05-21T10:21:52Z")
[QUOTE=Common Tater] waiting for the Hawaiians to weigh in… “once, I had to put on an extra tee-shirt..” [/QUOTE] My mom once said, “I know it’s getting cold here when I have to put on pants.” Snerk. She was referring to her flannel pajama pants, which she whips out when it gets cold in the evenings. Me, highest has been 97 in Honolulu, and the lowest was -30 in Minnesota. Incidentally, the friend we were visiting there once experienced a 100-degree temperature swing when she flew home to Hawaii one December-- it had been -20 when she left Minnesota, and it was 80 when she landed in Honolulu. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/47 "2007-05-21T11:17:52Z")
-50 in my back yard, where I was walking my dog to go potty at 2am. ( It wasn’t that bad, really.) Michigan. 1994ish or maybe 95. With windchill. 105, in Texas when I was visiting a friend. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/48 "2007-05-21T11:41:55Z")
122 degrees f (51 c) in Phoenix Arizona in 1990. It was so hot, planes could not take off at the airport owing to not enough lift. Cold - dunno but 15,000 feet in Tibet in the winter with frozen waterfalls and a howling wind. The ground was permafrost. It was butt cold ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/49 "2007-05-21T12:58:44Z")
117 in desert south of Laredo. -35 in windy, downtown Calgary. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/50 "2007-05-21T13:05:03Z")
**Hottest** - 110°F/43°C: Las Cruces, New Mexico 1992. To use a cliche, it was a dry heat. I remember spending that day lounging by the pool in the apartment complex where I lived, and jumping in every so often. It really didn’t feel that bad. **Coldest** - -27°F/-32°C: Chicago, Illinois 1985. After it dropped below 0°F, it just felt “fucking cold”. The difference between 0° and -27°; starting the rental car I had was nearly impossible, and it took forever just to heat the passenger compartment to a level where I could take my gloves off. ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/51 "2007-05-21T13:11:55Z")
Hottest: 1300[sup]o[/sup]F (that is **not** a typo) during a live burn exercise in fire school. I was engulfed in a propane flame, and when the course was over, I had some 1st degree steam burns on my face and neck. Coldest: -26[sup]o[/sup]F with a -54[sup]o[/sup]F windchill during the Blizzard of '78. ---
**Author:** ![frog\_princess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6bbea6/32.png) [@frog\_princess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/frog_princess)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794/52 "2007-05-21T17:00:09Z")
Hottest was 114 F in Pheonix, AZ Coldest was -26 F at Gillette Stadium watching a Patriots game. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-temperature-extremes-youve-experienced/404794.md?page=2)