The winter season is one of the best times to enjoy holidays and outdoor activities with your families and friends. You can visit numerous places for skiing, snowboarding, dogsledding, or just enjoying the magnificent vistas while you ride a gondola or a lift in one of the most famous ski resorts in the world.
Cold weather is enjoyable if you have an excellent place to stay and warm your bodies. However, extreme cold can cause harm to one’s health or affect the overall quality of life in a particular area.
Here are a few coldest places in the world where temperatures range from −60 °C (−76 °F)to −140 °C (−220 °F).
International Falls, Minnesota, United States
(−40 °C or −40 °F)
International Falls takes its distinction as one of the coldest spots in the continental U.S. so seriously that it has taken another community to court over it.
According to a BBC article, International Falls took Fraser, Colorado, to court in 2002 to ultimately clarify who had a claim to the moniker “Icebox of the Nation.” They now have the annual four-day Icebox Days festival to commemorate their victory, including frozen turkey bowling, snow sculpture, and lighted skiing.
International Falls has the lowest average temperature in the country, fluctuating between 0 and 2 °C (32 and 36 °F), despite being just the second coldest place in the United States.
Stanley, Idaho, United States
(−47 °C or −52.6 °F)
Stanley, Idaho, a village 130 miles (209 kilometers) east of Boise, holds the title of the coldest place in the U.S. According to a BBC article, the town has the highest percentage of coldest days between 1995 and 2005, in addition to record freezing temperature.
Stanley is flanked by the Boulder, White Cloud, and Sawtooth Mountain Ranges, all of which have peaks exceeding 10,000 feet and are included within the Rockies (3,048 m). Three national forests surround the town: the Challis, Boise, and Sawtooth.
Prospect Creek
(−62.1 °C or −78.16 °F)
Approximately 180 miles north of Fairbanks in Alaska, Prospect Creek is just a tiny settlement and initially home to mining expeditions and the home base for the 27,000 people building the Alaskan Pipeline. Since the pipeline’s completion in 1977, there has been little activity in the area. It was known to hold the lowest temperature in the U.S. in January 1971, which had reached −62.22 °C(−80 °F).
According to the Alaska Pipeline Operation Company, the oil in the pipeline did not freeze despite these frigid temperatures, and it was due to 4-inch-thick (10 centimeters) fiberglass thermal insulation.
Snag, Yukon Territory
(−63.9 °C or −83.02 °F)
Snag is a village in the White River valley, including Snag Creek, for which it was named in 1898. It holds the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded in North America that happened in 1947.
According to the Alaska Science Forum, at that time, the temperature was freezing, that the meteorologists at the station needed to carve a new notch in the thermometer’s case and send the entire thing for analysis to determine the exact temperature.
Yakutsk
(−64.4 °C or −83.92 °F)
Yakutsk is one of Siberia’s oldest cities. It is the capital of the Russian republic of Yakutia. Sitting on the Lena River’s western bank, the place a freezing temperature during winter that the river itself turns into a seasonal road.
In 1822, Yakutsk was designated as a city, and today it is a significant administrative, industrial, cultural, and research center.
Local folklore and legend are even focused on how cold the place is and how it became freezing. Part of the story was the god creation has been flying worldwide and distributing natural resources and riches, but when he reached Yakutia, he got so cold that his hands went numb, and he dropped everything. Consequently, every element on the periodic table can be found in the region.
Verkhoyansk
(−69.8 °C or −93.64 °F)
This Siberian town founded in 1638 is near the Arctic Circle. The town was once a political exile until 1917 and eventually became a river port, a fur-collecting depot, and a reindeer-raising area.
Besides being the third coldest place globally, it was officially declared the third smallest town in Russia. Verkhoyansk has an extensive range of temperatures between the seasons. Average monthly temperatures range from −45.78 °C (−50.4 °F) in January to 16.67 °C (62 °F) in July.
Oymyakon
(−71.2 °C or −96.16 °F)
Also, in Siberia, Oymyakon is a village that sits 217 miles below the Arctic Circle. It holds the record as the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth.
Although the ground is in a constant permafrost state, the place is still home to more than 210 000 people. During the extreme freezing temperatures, residents leave their vehicles running all day to prevent the battery from shutting down due to the weather condition. Moreover, schools also are closed when temperatures fall below minus −52 °C (61 °F).
Oymyakon, along with Verkhoyansk and Yakutsk, is located in a region for political exiles of the Soviet regime that was formerly nicknamed “Stalin’s Death Ring.”
Amundsen-Scott Station
(−82.8°C or −117.04 °F)
The Amundsen-Scott Station, built-in 1956 and located on the South Pole, receives six months of sunshine in the summer and six months of absolute darkness in the winter. The greatest temperature ever recorded on this portion of the East Antarctic Plateau was −12.3°C (9.86 °F) on Christmas Day in 2011. In June 1982, the coldest temperature ever recorded was -82.8°C (−117.04 °F).
Vostok Station
(−89.2 °C or −128.56 °F)
The Soviet Union built the Vostok research station in 1957 as part of the Southern Pole of Cold, a location in the south pole with the lowest-recorded surface temperatures. In July 1983, thermometers recorded a low of −89.2°C (−128.56 °F), the coldest air temperature ever directly measured. It’s also one of the driest spots on the planet, with only 20 millimeters of precipitation each year, all of which is snow.
East Antarctic Plateau
(−100 °C or −148 °F)
This ice ridge of the East Antarctic Plateau is the coldest place on Earth. It is found between the summits Dome Argus and Dome Fuji. Dome Argus is the highest ice feature in Antarctica, and temperatures reach −90 °C (−130 °F) to −98 °C (−144 °F).
According to researchers, temperatures reached −100 °C (−148 °F)- the lowest temperature ever recorded on the planet.