How cold is the South Pole?
South Pole
In midsummer, as the sun reaches its maximum elevation of about 23.5 degrees, high temperatures at the South Pole in January average at . As the six-month "day" wears on and the sun gets lower, temperatures drop as well: they reach around sunset (late March) and sunrise (late September). In midwinter, the average temperature remains steady at around . The highest temperature ever recorded at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station was on Christmas Day, 2011, and the lowest was on June 23, 1982 (for comparison, the lowest temperature directly recorded anywhere on earth was at Vostok Station on July 21, 1983, though was measured indirectly by satellite in East Antarctica between Dome A and Dome F in August 2010). Mean annual temperature at the South Pole is -49.3 °C (-56.7 °F).
Ste. Anne
Ste. Anne has an extreme continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb). Ste Anne is approximately northwest of International Falls, Minnesota, which according to USA Today is the coldest place in the continental USA. Summers are short and cool, with only three months (June to August) when the average high temperature exceeds 20 °C (68 °F). Even during the summer months, evening and night temperatures are quite cool, for example the average low in July is 13 °C (55 °F). Spring and autumn are highly variable seasons, but generally very cool. On average there are only 110 frost-free days per year. Winters are best described as extremely long and bitterly cold, with snow cover generally from November to March. According to Environment Canada, the daily average high temperatures range from -13 °C (9 °F) to 26 °C (79 °F), and average low temperatures range from -23 °C (-9 °F) to 13 °C (55 °F). The weather is characterized by an abundance of sunshine throughout the year. July is the sunniest month, and November the least sunny.
Yana River
The Yana basin is the site of the so-called Pole of Cold of Russia, where the lowest recorded temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere are found. In the winter, temperatures in the centre of the basin average as low as and have reached as low as though in the mountains it is believed that temperatures have reached . Yakut folklore says that, at such temperatures, if you shout to a friend and they cannot hear you, it is because the words have frozen in the air. However, when spring comes the words "thaw" and one can hear everything that was said months ago.
Ice Challenger Expedition
In 2005 a team of six people took part in the Ice Challenger Expedition. Travelling in a specially designed six wheel drive vehicle, the team completed the journey from the Antarctic coast at Patriot Hills to the geographic South Pole in 69 hours. In doing so they easily beat the previous record of 24 days. They arrived at the South Pole on 12 December 2005.
The team members on that expedition were Andrew Regan, Jason De Carteret, Andrew Moon, Richard Griffiths, Gunnar Egilsson and Andrew Miles. 
The expedition hoped to show that wheeled transport on the continent is not only possible but also more practical. It was also aimed at increasing awareness about global warming.
Saint Paul Island (Alaska)
Saint Paul's climate is strongly influenced by the cold waters of the surrounding Bering Sea, and is classified as polar (Köppen "ET") due to the raw chilliness of the summers. It experiences a relatively narrow range of temperatures, high wind, humidity and cloudiness levels, and persistent summer fog. There is high seasonal lag: February is the island's coldest month, while August is its warmest; the difference between the average low temperature in February and the average high temperature in August is only . Although the mean average temperature for the year is above freezing, at , the monthly daily average temperature remains below freezing from December to April. Low temperatures at or below occur an average of 4.7 nights per year (mostly from January to March), and the island is part of USDA Hardiness Zone 6. Extreme temperatures have ranged from on March 14, 1971, up to on August 25, 1987. Winds are strong and persistent year-round, averaging around . They are strongest from late autumn through winter, when they increase to an average of nearly , blowing mostly from the north. In the summer, they become weaker and blow primarily from the south.
Eric Larsen (explorer)
In March 2014, Eric Larsen and Ryan Waters set out to traverse nearly 500 miles across the melting Arctic Ocean, unsupported, from Northern Ellesmere Island to the geographic North Pole. Despite being one of the most cold and hostile environments on the planet, the Arctic Ocean has seen a steady and significant reduction of sea ice over the past seven years due to climate change. Because of this, Larsen’s and Waters’ trip—dubbed the “Last North Expedition”—is expected to be the last human-powered trek to the North Pole, ever.
Polar climate
The Arctic consists of ocean that is almost surrounded by land. As such, the climate of much of the Arctic is moderated by the ocean water, which can never have a temperature below . In winter, this relatively warm water, even though covered by the polar ice pack, keeps the North Pole from being the coldest place in the Northern Hemisphere, and it is also part of the reason that Antarctica is so much colder than the Arctic. In summer, the presence of the nearby water keeps coastal areas from warming as much as they might otherwise, just as it does in temperate regions with maritime climates.
Polar High
Climatology
North Pole
While the South Pole lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice. This makes it impractical to construct a permanent station at the North Pole (unlike the South Pole). However, the Soviet Union, and later Russia, constructed a number of manned drifting stations on a generally annual basis since 1937, some of which have passed over or very close to the Pole. Since 2002, the Russians have also annually established a base, Barneo, close to the Pole. This operates for a few weeks during early spring. Studies in the 2000s predicted that the North Pole may become seasonally ice-free because of Arctic ice shrinkage, with timescales varying from 2016 to the late 21st century or later.
Edward Adrian Wilson
On 15 June 1910, Wilson set sail from Cardiff on the "Terra Nova", as Chief of the Scientific Staff of Scott's final expedition. After making stops in Madeira, South Trinidad, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, the "Terra Nova" was trapped for 3 weeks by pack ice, and finally arrived at Cape Evans in McMurdo Sound in early January 1911. A base camp hut was built and 3 weeks later work began to establish the supply depots in preparation for the journey to the South Pole the following austral spring. Deteriorating weather conditions and weak, unacclimatised ponies meant that the main supply point, One Ton Depot, was laid 35 miles (56 km) further north of its planned location at 80°S, something that was to prove critical during the return journey from the Pole the following year.
In the austral winter of 1911, Wilson led "The Winter Journey", a journey with Henry Robertson Bowers and Apsley Cherry-Garrard, to the Emperor penguin breeding grounds at Cape Crozier to collect eggs for scientific study. The 60-mile journey was made in almost total darkness, with temperatures reaching as low as . Frozen and exhausted, they reached their goal only to be stopped by a blizzard during which their tent was ripped away and carried off by the wind, leaving the men trapped in their sleeping bags for a day and a half under a thickening drift of snow. When the winds subsided, by great fortune they found their tent lodged about half a mile away in rocks. Having successfully collected three eggs, and desperately exhausted, they returned to Cape Evans on 1 August 1911, five weeks after setting off. Cherry-Garrard later described this expedition in his memoir, "The Worst Journey in the World".
On 1 November 1911, fourteen men set off from Cape Evans on the long trip to the South Pole. 79 days later, Wilson was one of the five-man Polar party that reached the Pole on 18 January 1912, only to find the pole had been claimed by Norwegian Roald Amundsen and his team just five weeks earlier.
Oymyakon
There is a monument built around the town square commemorating a reading in the 1920s of −71.2. This was shown on the Australian program "60 Minutes" in a 2012 documentary. On February 6, 1933, a temperature of was recorded at Oymyakon's weather station. This was the coldest officially recorded temperature in the Northern Hemisphere. Only Antarctica has recorded lower official temperatures (the lowest being , recorded at Vostok Station on 21 July 1983).
Concordia Station
Dome C is one of the coldest places on Earth. Temperatures hardly rise above −25 °C in summer and can fall below −80 °C in winter with a recent record –84.6 °C in 2010. The annual average air temperature is −54.5 °C. Humidity is low and it is also very dry, with very little precipitation throughout the year.
South Pole Telescope
The South Pole Telescope (SPT) is a 10-meter (394 in) diameter telescope located at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica. The telescope is designed for observations in the microwave, millimeter-wave, and submillimeter-wave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, with the particular design goal of measuring the faint, diffuse emission from the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The first major survey with the SPT–designed to find distant, massive, clusters of galaxies through their interaction with the CMB, with the goal of constraining the dark energy equation of state–was completed in October 2011. In early 2012, a new camera (SPTpol) was installed on the SPT with even greater sensitivity and the capability to measure the polarization of incoming light. This camera operated from 2012–2016 and was used to make unprecedentedly deep high-resolution maps of hundreds of square degrees of the Southern sky. In 2017, the third-generation camera SPT-3G was installed on the telescope, providing nearly an order-of-magnitude increase in mapping speed over SPTpol.
The SPT collaboration is made up of over a dozen (mostly North American) institutions, including the University of Chicago, the University of California, Berkeley, Case Western Reserve University, Harvard/Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the University of Colorado Boulder, McGill University, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of California, Davis, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. It is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.
Martin A. Pomerantz
Pomerantz saw the potential of the South Pole as an observing platform remarkably early. Its proximity to the South magnetic pole of the Earth means that charged cosmic rays can be detected there without the deflections they experience when detected at lower latitudes. Astronomical observations near the Earth's poles can be done over long periods, without the diurnal variations at lower latitudes. The South Pole is at an altitude of nearly , so the astronomical seeing should be comparable to other high-altitude observatories; the extreme cold in Antarctica also corresponds to relatively little water vapor in the atmosphere there, which is a particular advantage for infrared astronomy. Finally, the South Pole lies at the top of a very deep, nearly permanent ice sheet that has been used to advantage in experiments such as the IceCube Neutrino Detector.
Plateau
Another very large plateau is the icy Antarctic Plateau, which is sometimes referred to as the Polar Plateau, home to the geographic South Pole and the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, which covers most of East Antarctica where there are no known mountains but rather high of superficial ice and which spreads very slowly toward the surrounding coastline through enormous glaciers. This polar ice cap is so massive that the echolocation sound measurements of ice thickness have shown that large parts of the Antarctic "dry land" surface have been pressed below sea level. Thus, if that same ice cap were suddenly removed, the large areas of the frozen white continent would be flooded by the surrounding Antarctic Ocean or Southern Ocean. On the other hand, were the ice cap melts away too gradually, the surface of the land beneath it would gradually rebound away through isostasy from the center of the Earth and that same land would ultimately rise above sea level.
Polar seas
Relatively, the Antarctic seas and Southern ocean surround the highest, driest, coldest and windiest continent on the earth - Antarctica. Due to the low mean temperature, there is no riverine input into the Antarctic seas. And little input DOM, POC from land. In addition to relatively thin sea ice, thick and extensive ice shelves (floating glaciers) are present in the Antarctic region. More than 90% of the sea ice is first year (annual) ice and less than 2m thick. The first confirmed sighting of Antarctica can date back to the 1820.
South Park Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
The warmest month of the year in South Park, as in most of the northern hemisphere, is July. The average high temperature is , with overnight low temperatures averaging . July is often humid, resulting in a considerable heat index. The coldest month of the year is January, when the average high temperature is . Overnight low temperatures average . The highest temperature ever recorded in South Park was , on July 16, 1988, and the coldest temperature ever recorded was , on January 19, 1994.
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Due to its northerly location in the United States and lack of large bodies of water to moderate the air, Saint Paul is sometimes subjected to cold Arctic air masses, especially during late December, January, and February. The average annual temperature of gives the Minneapolis−Saint Paul metropolitan area the coldest annual mean temperature of any major metropolitan area in the continental U.S.
Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station
Snow accumulation is about (water equivalent) per year. The station stands at an elevation of above sea level on the interior of Antarctica's nearly featureless ice sheet, which is about thick at that location. The recorded temperature has varied between and , with an annual mean of ; monthly mean temperatures vary from in December to in July. The average wind speed is ; the peak gust recorded was .
Antarctic Journal
During their journey to the Pole of Inaccessibility (POI), the remotest point of the Antarctic, the expedition of six men, led by Captain Choi Do-hyung, discovers a journal that was left behind by a British expedition 80 years earlier. The journal was remarkably preserved in a box in the snow and Kim Min-jae, another member of the expedition, gets the job of examining it. It turns out that the two expeditions shared the same goal and soon other strange similarities between them start to show up. Will they make it to their destination before the sun goes down for the Antarctic winter?
North Pole
The North Pole is the northernmost point on the Earth, lying diametrically opposite the South Pole. It defines geodetic latitude 90° North, as well as the direction of true north. At the North Pole all directions point south; all lines of longitude converge there, so its longitude can be defined as any degree value. Along tight latitude circles, counterclockwise is east and clockwise is west. The North Pole is at the center of the Northern Hemisphere.
South
True south is the direction towards the sun end of the axis about which the Earth rotates, called the South Pole. The South Pole is located in Antarctica. Magnetic south is the direction towards the south magnetic pole, some distance away from the south geographic pole.
Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station
Research at the station includes glaciology, geophysics, meteorology, upper atmosphere physics, astronomy, astrophysics, and biomedical studies. In recent years, most of the winter scientists have worked for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory or for low-frequency astronomy experiments such as the South Pole Telescope and BICEP2. The low temperature and low moisture content of the polar air, combined with the altitude of over , causes the air to be far more transparent on some frequencies than is typical elsewhere, and the months of darkness permit sensitive equipment to run constantly.
Season
In the temperate and polar regions, seasons are marked by changes in the amount of sunlight, which in turn often causes cycles of dormancy in plants and hibernation in animals. These effects vary with latitude and with proximity to bodies of water. For example, the South Pole is in the middle of the continent of Antarctica and therefore a considerable distance from the moderating influence of the southern oceans. The North Pole is in the Arctic Ocean, and thus its temperature extremes are buffered by the water. The result is that the South Pole is consistently colder during the southern winter than the North Pole during the northern winter.
Antarctica
It was not until 31 October 1956, that anyone set foot on the South Pole again; on that day a U.S. Navy group led by Rear Admiral George J. Dufek successfully landed an aircraft there. The first women to step onto the South Pole were Pam Young, Jean Pearson, Lois Jones, Eileen McSaveney, Kay Lindsay and Terry Tickhill in 1969.
Vostok Station
Vostok is one of the coldest places on Earth. The average temperature of the cold season (from April to October) is about , while the average temperature of the warm season (from November to March) is about .
Molteno, Eastern Cape
Molteno is one of the coldest towns in South Africa, second only to Sutherland in the Northern Cape, with an average yearly temperature of 13.3 °C and an average annual minimum temperature of 6.0 °C.
Southland, New Zealand
Winters are colder and more severe than other regions. The mean maximum temperature in July is 9.5 °C and Southland’s lowest recorded temperature was −18 °C in July 1946. Snow and frost also frequently occur in inland areas but are less common and extreme in coastal areas where the oceans act as a moderating factor. The long-lasting cool and wet conditions are influenced by the presence of a stationary low-pressure zone to the southeast of the country.
Simon Murray (businessman)
Following a suggestion by his wife, Murray joined Pen Hadow for a trek to the Geographic South Pole. The 1,200 km trek started in early December 2004 at Hercules Inlet on the Zumberge Coast, Antarctica and was completed when they reached the South Pole about two months later. They climbed up to 2,835 m above mean sea level on the way. Murray became the oldest man to reach the South Pole unsupported.
São Paulo
The record high temperature was on October 17, 2014 and the lowest on June 25, 1918. Temperature averages are similar to those of Sydney and Shanghai. The Tropic of Capricorn, at about 23°27' S, passes through north of São Paulo and roughly marks the boundary between the tropical and temperate areas of South America. Because of its elevation, however, São Paulo experiences a more temperate climate.
The city experiences four seasons. The winter is mild and sub-dry, and the summer is moderately warm and rainy. Autumn and spring are transitional seasons. Frosts occur sporadically in regions further away from the center, in some winters throughout the city. Regions further away from the center and in cities in the metropolitan area, can reach temperatures next to , or even lower in the winter.
Siberia
Southwesterly winds bring warm air from Central Asia and the Middle East. The climate in West Siberia (Omsk, Novosibirsk) is several degrees warmer than in the East (Irkutsk, Chita) where in the north an extreme winter subarctic climate (Köppen "Dfd" or "Dwd") prevails. But summer temperatures in other regions can reach . In general, Sakha is the coldest Siberian region, and the basin of the Yana River has the lowest temperatures of all, with permafrost reaching . Nevertheless, as far as Imperial Russian plans of settlement were concerned, cold was never viewed as an impediment. In the winter, southern Siberia sits near the center of the semi-permanent Siberian High, so winds are usually light in the winter.
Polar climate
The climate of Antarctica is the coldest on Earth. Antarctica has the lowest naturally occurring temperature ever recorded: at Vostok Station. It is also extremely dry (technically a desert), averaging of precipitation per year, as weather fronts rarely penetrate far into the continent.
Eric Larsen (explorer)
In March 2014, Larsen and Ryan Waters crossed the Arctic Ocean from Northern Ellesmere Island to the geographic North Pole. Larsen has stated that his expedition may be the last ever to the North Pole because of melting ice due to climate change. 
In December 2012, Eric Larsen attempted to be the first person to bike to the South Pole. Departing Hercules Inlet, he made it 175 miles before turning around. In his attempt he set the record for the most miles traveled by bicycle in Antarctica. Daniel P. Burton broke the record in 2014 when he rode his bike to the South Pole.
Pole of Cold
The small rural locality of Delyankir, also in the Sakha Republic, has a lower average temperature throughout all winter months than either Oymyakon or Verkhoyansk, as well as a lower yearly average. Its record low temperature of is slightly higher than the record lows set at Oymyakon and Verkhoyansk, however.
Russia
Most of Northern European Russia and Siberia has a subarctic climate, with extremely severe winters in the inner regions of Northeast Siberia (mostly the Sakha Republic, where the Northern Pole of Cold is located with the record low temperature of ), and more moderate winters elsewhere. Both the strip of land along the shore of the Arctic Ocean and the Russian Arctic islands have a polar climate.
Sochi
Sochi has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification "Cfa"), at the lower elevations. Its average annual temperature is during the day and at night. In the coldest months—January and February—the average temperature is about during the day, above at night and the average sea temperature is about . In the warmest months—July and August—the temperature typically ranges from during the day, about at night and the average sea temperature is about . Yearly sunshine hours are around 2,200. Generally, the summer season lasts four months, from June to September. Two months—April and November—are transitional; sometimes temperatures reach , with an average temperature of around during the day and at night. December, January, February and March are the coldest months, with average temperature (of these four months) during the day and at night. Average annual precipitation is about . Sochi lies at 8b/9a hardiness zone, so the city supports different types of palm trees. Sochi is situated on the same latitude as Nice but strong cold winds from Asia make winters less warm. In fact, temperatures drop below freezing every winter. The highest temperature recorded was , on July 30, 2000, and the lowest temperature recorded was on January 25, 1892.
South Magnetic Pole
On 16 January 1909 three men (Douglas Mawson, Edgeworth David, and Alistair Mackay) from Sir Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition claimed to have found the South Magnetic Pole, which was at that time located on land. They planted a flagpole at the spot and claimed it for the British Empire. The three men began the expedition to the South Magnetic Pole in a motor car specially adapted for the cold conditions, but abandoned it when it proved useless on soft surfaces. They then walked a total of 1260 miles to reach the South Magnetic Pole while pulling sledges and supplies that weighed approximately 670 lbs. Walking on foot across the coldest place on earth was perilous, and the men faced many dangers such as falling in concealed snow crevasses and acquiring frostbite and snow-blindness. Fearing starvation, they strictly rationed their biscuits down to the crumbs, and hunted seals and penguins. However, there is now some doubt as to whether their location was correct. The approximate position of the pole on 16 January 1909 was .
History of Antarctica
Scott and his four companions reached the South Pole via the Beardmore route on 17 January 1912, 33 days after Amundsen. All five died on the return journey from the Pole, through a combination of starvation and cold. The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station was later named after these two men.
Buzz Aldrin
In December 2016, Aldrin was part of a tourist group visiting the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica when he fell ill and was evacuated, first to McMurdo Station and from there to Christchurch, New Zealand. At 86 years of age, Aldrin's visit made him the oldest person to reach the South Pole. He had traveled to the North Pole in 1998.
Sveg
Sveg has a relatively mild subarctic climate. It has certain continental features, being prone to heat and cold extremes with an all-time record of and a cold extreme of , although the latter was set in the 19th century. A more recent reading was in January 1987 during a chilling cold wave that struck Northern Europe. In spite of it being in the middle of the Scandinavian landmass on such a high parallel, the winters are somewhat milder than expected, due to the mild North Atlantic air that often rises temperatures. Summer days are often warm, many times averaging around , but nights are regularly cool, and frost can be recorded even in the midst of summer. In terms of Scandinavian climate, Sveg is an anomaly in that December is somewhat colder than February.
North Pole, Alaska
Temperatures in North Pole are heavily affected by the amount of sunlight with almost no lag effect from solar radiation. North Pole's Santa Claus House is actually closed during the week in January and February due to extreme cold in those months. Due to being landlocked and protected by mountain ranges from marine influences, North Pole, much like the rest of the Alaskan Interior, sees little seasonal lag and much greater seasonal temperature swings than areas along the coast such as Anchorage, with winters that can dip to many tens of degrees below zero F with average lows remaining below 0 from November 5 to March 18, and summers that see many days in the 70s, 80s, and on occasion, even 90s F.
Research stations in Antarctica
The United States maintains the southernmost Base and the largest base and research station 
in Antarctica, Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. The second-southernmost base is the Chinese Kunlun Station at 80°25′02″S during the summer season, and the Russian Vostok Station at 78°27′50″S during the winter season.
Climate of Russia
Due to the moderating influence of the Atlantic or Pacific, most areas of the country in European Russia, in the south of West Siberia and in the south of the Russian Far East, including the cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, experience a humid continental climate. (Köppen's Dfb, Dfa, Dwb, Dwa types). Most of Northern European Russia and Siberia between the Scandinavian Peninsula and the Pacific Ocean has a subarctic climate, with extremely severe winters (Dfd, Dwd) in the inner regions of Northeast Siberia (mostly the Sakha Republic, where the Northern Pole of Cold is located with the record low temperature of ), and more moderate (Dwc, Dfc) elsewhere.
Polar vortex
A polar vortex is an upper level low-pressure area lying near the Earth's poles. There are two polar vortices in the Earth's atmosphere, overlying the North and South Poles. Each polar vortex is a persistent, large-scale, low-pressure zone that rotates counter-clockwise at the North Pole (called a cyclone) and clockwise at the South Pole, i.e., both polar vortices rotate eastward around the poles. The bases of the two polar vortices are located in the middle and upper troposphere and extend into the stratosphere. Beneath that lies a large mass of cold, dense Arctic air.
Climate of Finland
The warmest annual average temperature in Southwestern Finland is . From there the temperature decreases gradually towards north and east. Suomenselkä and Maanselkä drainage divides rise higher than the surrounding areas, and the climate is there cooler than at same latitudes elsewhere in Finland. Barents Sea between Finland and North Pole is open even in winter, so northerly airflows are not as cold as in Siberia or Alaska.
The highest ever recorded temperature is (Liperi, July 29, 2010). The lowest, (Kittilä, January 28, 1999). The annual average temperature is relatively high in the southwestern part of the country (), with quite mild winters and warm summers, and low in the northeastern part of Lapland ().
Antarctica
Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Most of Antarctica is a polar desert, with annual precipitation of only 200 mm (8 in) along the coast and far less inland. The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) (or even −94.7 °C (−135.8 °F) as measured from space), though the average for the third quarter (the coldest part of the year) is −63 °C (−81 °F). Anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at research stations scattered across the continent. Organisms native to Antarctica include many types of algae, bacteria, fungi, plants, protista, and certain animals, such as mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades. Vegetation, where it occurs, is tundra.
Plateau Station
Plateau Station is an inactive American research and South Pole—Queen Maud Land Traverse support base on the central Antarctic Plateau. Construction on the site started on December 13, 1965, and the first traverse team (named SPQML II) arrived in early 1966. The base was in continuous use until January 29, 1969, when it was closed but mothballed for future use, and was the most remote and coldest of any United States stations on the continent. It was also the site for the world's coldest measured average temperature for a month at that time, recorded in July 1968, at .
Gällivare
As expected given its high latitude Gällivare has a very cold climate. Under the Köppen climate classification it is classified as a subarctic climate. Winters are very severe by Scandinavian standards, but are somewhat moderated by marine air from the North Atlantic preventing polar temperatures and certain cities on the North American Great Plains much further south such as Winnipeg and Grand Forks lower than 50 degrees latitude have colder January averages than Gällivare has.
Lowest temperature recorded on Earth
The next reliable measurement was made during the 1957 season at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica, yielding on May 11 and on September 17. A subsequent measurement of , on August 24, 1960, held the record until a temperature of was measured at the Soviet Vostok Station, on the Antarctic Plateau, on July 21, 1983. This remains the record for a directly recorded temperature.
Parker Liautaud
By the age of 17, Liautaud had undertaken three expeditions to the North Pole. At 19 years old, he led the Willis Resilience Expedition to the South Pole, a two-part Antarctic journey with Willis Group that included a 1900 km crossing of Antarctica to conduct climate change research, followed by a 560 km trek from the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole. On December 24, 2013, Liautaud and fellow explorer Doug Stoup completed the expedition, setting a new record for the fastest human-powered trek from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole. Liautaud became the youngest man to trek to the South Pole at the time.
Podlaskie Voivodeship
Podlaskie is the coldest region of Poland, located in the very northeast of the country near the border with Belarus and Lithuania. The region has a continental climate which is characterized by high temperatures during summer and long and frosty winters. The climate is affected by the cold fronts which come from Scandinavia and Siberia. The average temperature in the winter ranges from -15 °C (5 °F) to -4 °C (24.8 °F).
Pole of Cold
In the southern hemisphere, the Pole of Cold is currently located in Antarctica, at the Russian (formerly Soviet) Antarctic station Vostok at . On July 21, 1983, this station recorded a temperature of . This is the lowest naturally occurring temperature ever recorded on Earth. Vostok station is located at the elevation of above sea level, far removed from the moderating influence of oceans (more than from the nearest sea coast), and high latitude that results in almost three months of civil polar night every year (early May to end of July), all combine to produce an environment where temperatures rarely rise above during summer and frequently fall below in winter. By comparison, the South Pole, due to its lower elevation, is, on average, warmer than Vostok, and the lowest temperature ever recorded at the South Pole is .
Pole of Cold
Monitoring stations in Antarctica are few and far between; prior to 1995, Vostok was the only research station on the Antarctic Plateau above the elevation of 3,000 m (with the exception of Plateau Station during the brief period that it was active in the 1960s), with no other stations for several hundred kilometers in any direction. Temperatures below , if they did occur elsewhere, would not have been recorded. The automatic weather station at Dome A was only installed in 2005, and has recorded as the coldest so far (2010). However a review of satellite measurements taken between 2010–2013 found several places located along a ridge between Dome A and Dome F which recorded even lower temperatures of , with the lowest reliable temperature being recorded in 2010, at , at an elevation of . The extreme low temperatures are found in hollows slightly below the peak of the ice ridge, where cold air gets trapped as it flows downhill, and since the same low temperature ranges were detected at several different sites along the ridge across multiple years, it is thought this may be the lowest temperature achievable under local atmospheric conditions.
Verkhoyansk
Verkhoyansk is one of the places considered the northern Pole of Cold, the others being Oymyakon, located 629 km (391 miles) away by air, and Delyankir. The lowest temperature recorded there, in February 1892, was , recorded on February 5 and 7. This was formerly the coldest officially recorded temperature in the Northern Hemisphere. However, on February 6, 1933, the temperature at Oymyakon reached , just barely exceeding Verkhoyansk's record. Only Antarctica has recorded lower temperatures than Oymyakon or Verkhoyansk: the lowest directly recorded temperature at ground level is , recorded at the Vostok Station in Antarctica on July 21, 1983., and a temperature of was recorded via satellite observations at the East Antarctic Plateau in Antarctica on August 10, 2010.
2017–18 North American cold wave
On January 1, 2018 in Aberdeen, South Dakota, a new low temperature of was set. In Indianapolis, Indiana, the temperature reached a new low of . On January 2, a daily record low in Sioux City, Iowa was set at . Other daily record low temperatures included Cedar Rapids, Iowa , Pierre, South Dakota , South Bend, Indiana , Quincy, Illinois and Lynchburg, Virginia . On January 5, Toronto broke a 59-year-old record with a morning low temperature of –23 °C (–9 °F) at the Pearson International Airport weather station.
Oymyakon
With an extreme subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification "Dfd/Dwd"), Oymyakon is known as one of the places considered the Northern Pole of Cold, the others being the rural locality of Delyankir, also located in the Oymyakonsky district of the Sakha Republic, and the town of Verkhoyansk, located 629 km (391 miles) away by air. The ground is permanently frozen (continuous permafrost).
West Yellowstone, Montana
At almost 7,000 feet above sea level and almost exactly halfway between the equator and the North Pole, West Yellowstone experiences a subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification "Dfc"), with cold — sometimes bitterly cold — winters and brief but generally warm summers. West Yellowstone is snow-covered from the beginning of November until the beginning of May. At the peak of the snowpack, which typically occurs in early March, there are 3.5 – 4 feet of snow on the ground. In 2007-2008, West Yellowstone had snow on the ground from late October until mid May, with 4.5 feet of snow by late March. During the summer, the average low is , and the average high is . During the winter, the average low is , and the average high is . West Yellowstone holds the record low of any community in the lower 48 states at , although Rogers Pass, Montana is colder, at . However, the town's December record low of is the monthly record low for the lower 48 states.
58th parallel north
Where cold ocean currents dominate such as near the Hudson Bay the climate is polar, rendering in severe winter conditions and very subdued summers. This type of climate is seen in the surroundings of Inukjuak in Quebec, Canada, where the sea ice eliminates winter moderation, but the thawing of the cold water renders in very cool summers as well. In more hypercontinental cold areas such as these winters commonly go below even during the day. Further west in inland areas winters are often as severe, but summers average above , similar to Sweden and western Russia, where climates are much gentler.
Sakha Republic
Sakha is known for its climate extremes, with the Verkhoyansk Range being the coldest area in the Northern Hemisphere. Some of the lowest natural temperatures ever recorded have been here. The Northern Hemisphere's Pole of Cold is at Verkhoyansk, where the temperatures reached as low as in 1892, and at Oymyakon, where the temperatures reached as low as in 1926.
"Average annual precipitation": 200 mm (central parts) to 700 mm (mountains of Eastern Sakha).
Tom Avery
In 2002 Avery at age 25 became the youngest Briton ever to ski to the South Pole. The Commonwealth South Pole Centenary Expedition was the ninth major expedition that he had organised and was the culmination of two years' planning. Following a training trip in New Zealand, the small party of four flew to Antarctica in early November 2002, beginning their expedition from Hercules Inlet. On 28 December 2002, 45 days and 6 hours later, Avery's team completed the journey to the South Pole. They broke the South Pole speed record by using kites to power them across the ice, much like the modern sport of kitesurfing. They covered the last to the Pole in a marathon final 31 hours.
Based largely on his Antarctic journal, Avery published "Pole Dance" as his first book. Written in a diary form, it details the 2002 South Pole expedition.
Peak of eternal light
The lunar south pole is situated in a huge depression, leading to 16 km altitude differences over the region. Careful analysis of imagery and topographic conditions on the lunar South Pole by teams from NASA and the ESA revealed a small number of illuminated ridges within 15 km of the pole, each of them much like an island of no more than a few hundred meters across in an ocean of eternal darkness, where a lander could receive near-permanent lighting (for ~70–90% of the southern lunar winter, and likely all of the southern lunar summer).
Bolu
Bolu has an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification "Cfb"), with cold and snowy winters and warm summers with cool nights. Unlike the low-lying, sheltered city center, many parts of the province, like Gerede, have a humid continental climate ("Dfb"), due to very cold winters. January mean temperature is 0.7 °C, and temperatures rarely rise more than 12.3 °C and rarely drop below -15.0 °C during winter months. July mean temperature is 19.9 °C and temperatures rarely drop below 8.3 °C and rarely rise up to 32.2 °C in summer months. Lowest temperature recorded is -34 °C (-29.2 °F) in February 1929, and the highest was 39.8 °C (103.6 °F) in August 2006. Record snow thickness was 72 cm (28.3 inches) in February 1950. Bolu is a usually cloudy and foggy city and annual sunshine hours are about to be 1,600.Bolu's climate is similar to Budapest's climate.
Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station
The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station is a United States scientific research station at the South Pole, the southernmost place on the Earth. The station is located on the high plateau of Antarctica at an elevation of 2,835 metres (9,301 feet) above sea level and is administered by the Division of Polar Programs within the National Science Foundation under the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). It is named in honor of Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Englishman Robert F. Scott, who led separate teams that raced to become the first to the South Pole in the early 1900s.
Climate of Antarctica
The lowest recorded temperature of any location on Earth's surface at was revised with new data in 2018 in nearly 100 locations, ranging from to . This unnamed part of the Antarctic plateau, between Dome A and Dome F, was measured on August 10, 2010, and the temperature was deduced from radiance measured by the Landsat 8 and other satellites, and discovered during a National Snow and Ice Data Center review of stored data in December, 2013 but revice by researcher on June 25 2018. This temperature is not directly comparable to the –89.2 °C reading quoted above, since it is a skin temperature deduced from satellite-measured upwelling radiance, rather than a thermometer-measured temperature of the air above the ground surface.
North Pole
In some children's Western cultures, the geographic North Pole is described as the location of Santa Claus' workshop and residence, although the depictions have been inconsistent between the geographic and magnetic North Pole. Canada Post has assigned postal code H0H 0H0 to the North Pole (referring to Santa's traditional exclamation of "Ho ho ho!").
Robert Schwarz (astrophysicist)
Robert Schwarz is an astrophysicist who is () now beginning his 14th winter at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station--the 8th winter in a row. This is the most winters that anyone has ever spent at the South Pole, and the most that anyone has ever spent in a row. An avid photographer of the pole, many news organizations used his photographs in their coverage of the medical evacuation flights from the south pole in June, 2016.
Schwarz, a native of Munich, Germany, told "The Antarctic Sun" that he first became interested in astronomy on a Boy Scout field trip to the island volcano of Stromboli, near Sicily. “It was an absolutely amazing star sky,” Schwarz said. “That’s how I got hooked on that. I wanted to know more about it.” He holds an undergraduate degree in chemistry, math and physics, as well as a master's degree in physics from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. While a graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Physics, he saw a job posting to spend the winter of 1996-1997 working at the South Pole, and has returned for many winter seasons to work on a variety of science experiments at the Pole. He applied to the European Space Agency to become an astronaut, and has expressed interest in traveling to Mars. In his spare time at the pole, he teaches an introduction to astronomy class to other winter-overs. When not at the south pole, he visits his family in Germany and goes sailing near New Zealand.
Geography of Russia
In winter, an intense high-pressure system causes winds to blow from the south and the southwest in all but the Pacific region of the Russian landmass; in summer, a low-pressure system brings winds from the north and the northwest to most of the landmass. Russia is the coldest country of the world (average annual temperature is ). That meteorological combination reduces the wintertime temperature difference between north and south. Thus, average January temperatures are in Saint Petersburg, in the West Siberian Plain, and at Yakutsk (in east-central Siberia, at approximately the same latitude as Saint Petersburg), while the winter average on the Mongolian border, whose latitude is some 10° farther south, is barely warmer. Summer temperatures are more affected by latitude, however; the Arctic islands average , and the southernmost regions average . Russia's potential for temperature extremes is typified by the national record low of , recorded at Verkhoyansk in north-central Siberia and the record high of , recorded at several southern stations (Utta).
Southern Arctic Ecozone (CEC)
This ecozone experiences short summers which are cool and moist, with mean July temperatures of about 10 °C. Winters are long, dark and bitterly cold, with average January mean temperatures of -30 °C. The area in Quebec is relatively warmer, with mean January temperatures of -18 °C.
Inukjuak
Inukjuak has a polar climate with a July average of and February average of . The climate is influenced by the freezing of the shallow Hudson Bay combined with extremely moderated summers with very pronounced seasonal lag as the bay thaws. As a result, Inukjuak gets an extremely cold climate for the latitude, especially considering its maritime position. On similar latitudes in Scandinavia in Northern Europe summers are close to ten degrees warmer and winters are around the freezing point – demonstrating the extreme chilliness of the climate.
Karoo
Turning north from the N1 between Touws River and Beaufort West, at Matjiesfontein, the road ascends the Great Escarpment through the Verlatenkloof Pass to reach Sutherland, at 1456 m above sea level, which is reputedly the coldest town in South Africa with average minimum temperatures of -6.1 °C during winter. Parts of eastern the Mpumalangan Highveld do at times experience lower temperatures than Sutherland, but not as consistently as Sutherland does. Snowfalls are not infrequent during the southern winter months. The South African Astronomical Observatory has an emplacement of telescopes about 20 km east of the town, on a small plateau 1798 m above sea level, and is home to the Southern African Large Telescope, the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. To the north, still on the Plateau, and 75 km north-west of Carnarvon, seven radio dishes form part of the Square Kilometer Array which will, 2500 in total, be scattered in other parts of South Africa and Australia, to survey the southern skies at radio frequencies. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, one of the main targets of this enterprise, is best viewed from the Southern Hemisphere.
The Upper Karoo is indeed an ideal site for an astronomical observatory. This is not only because of the clear skies, absence of artificial lights, and high altitude, but it is also tectonically completely inactive, meaning that there are no fault lines or volcanoes are nearby, so no earth tremors or earthquakes occur, even at great distances.
South Pole
The geographic coordinates of the South Pole are usually given simply as 90°S, since its longitude is geometrically undefined and irrelevant. When a longitude is desired, it may be given as At the South Pole, all directions face north. For this reason, directions at the Pole are given relative to "grid north", which points northwards along the prime meridian. Along tight latitude circles, clockwise is east, and counterclockwise is west, opposite to the North Pole.
Patagonian Desert
During the winter, the proximity to the coast and the altitude are the main factors: while northern coastal areas have mild winters, from 2 °C at night to about 11 °C during the day, southern Santa Cruz ranges from -2 °C to 5 °C, and Tierra del Fuego, from -3 °C to 3 °C, for a mean of 0 °C.
Inland, the northern areas range from 0 °C to 10 °C in low areas, and from -5 °C to 5 °C on the plateaus (again, mean around 0 °C), while in the south, low areas range from -3 °C to 4 °C, and higher areas are clearly below 0 °C. The coldest spots usually register temperatures between -20 °C and -25 °C during cold waves, and the official record is -33.9 °C in Chubut province. However, some towns claim to have had records of around -35 °C.
Harbor
For harbors near the North and South Poles, being ice-free is an important advantage, especially when it is year-round. Examples of these include: 
The world's southmost harbor, located at Antarctica's Winter Quarters Bay (77° 50′ South), is potentially ice-free, depending on the summertime pack ice conditions.
VX-6
On 31 October 1956, during Operation Deep Freeze II, "Qué Será Será", a ski-equipped R4D Dakota piloted by LCDR Conrad S. Shinn, became the first plane to land at the South Pole. The seven United States Navy men (RADM George J. Dufek, CAPT Douglas L. Cordiner, CAPT William M. Hawkes, LCDR Conrad S. Shinn, LT John R. Swadener, AD2 John P. Strider, and AT2 William A. Cumbie, Jr.) aboard that aircraft were the first to stand at this spot in 44 years, the last being Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition in January 1912. RADM Dufek had chosen LCDR Shinn and his flight crew to attempt the landing, which was an extraordinary undertaking since the South Pole was almost above sea level where the aircraft engines would operate considerably below their optimum power levels. In addition it was expected that extremely cold conditions could be expected on the surface. The landing party remained at the South Pole for only 49 minutes, setting up navigational aids to assist the future delivery of materials and equipment for constructing a scientific observation station at the spot. Also in 1956, an R4D Dakota delivered the first group of 11 Seabees and 11 dog sleds, together with tents and other equipment to the South Pole, to begin construction of the first South Pole Station.
Poland
The warmest region in Poland is Lower Silesia in the southwest of the country, where temperatures in the summer average between but can go as high as on some days in the warmest months of July and August. The warmest cities in Poland are Tarnów in Lesser Poland, and Wrocław in Lower Silesia. The average temperatures in Wrocław are in the summer and in the winter, but Tarnów has the longest summer in all of Poland, which lasts for 115 days, from mid-May to mid-September. The coldest region of Poland is in the northeast in the Podlaskie Voivodeship near the borders with Belarus and Lithuania. Usually the coldest city is Suwałki. The climate is affected by cold fronts which come from Scandinavia and Siberia. The average temperature in the winter in Podlaskie ranges from . The biggest impact of the oceanic climate is observed in Świnoujście and Baltic Sea seashore area from Police to Słupsk.
South Ice
South Ice was a British support base from the South Pole at 82°05'S, 30°00'W in Edith Ronne Land, Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year, established by Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, where three men overwintered during the Antarctic winter of 1957. In the same winter, men overwintered for the first time at the South Pole.
Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station
During this six-month "night", air temperatures can drop below . This is also the time of the year when blizzards, often with gale-force winds, strike the Amundsen–Scott Station. Despite these blizzards, the continuous period of darkness and dry atmosphere make the station an excellent place from which to make astronomical observations.
North Pole
The sea depth at the North Pole has been measured at by the Russian Mir submersible in 2007 and at 4,087 m (13,410 ft) by USS "Nautilus" in 1958. The nearest land is usually said to be Kaffeklubben Island, off the northern coast of Greenland about away, though some perhaps semi-permanent gravel banks lie slightly closer. The nearest permanently inhabited place is Alert in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada, which is located from the Pole.
McGill Arctic Research Station
The average temperature at the research station is . Because of the cold temperatures, they can test how microbes can survive on the other colder planets in our Solar System. The station receives polar night from the first week of November until the beginning of February, and the midnight sun from the beginning of April until the second week of September.
South Pole
After Amundsen and Scott, the next people to reach the South Pole "overland" (albeit with some air support) were Edmund Hillary (January 4, 1958) and Vivian Fuchs (January 19, 1958) and their respective parties, during the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. There have been many subsequent expeditions to arrive at the South Pole by surface transportation, including those by Havola, Crary and Fiennes. The first group of women to reach the pole were Pam Young, Jean Pearson, Lois Jones, Eileen McSaveney, Kay Lindsay and Terry Tickhill in 1969. In 1978-79 Michele Eileen Raney became the first woman to winter at the South Pole.
South Pole
Due to its exceptionally harsh climate, there are no native resident plants or animals at the South Pole. Remarkably, though, off-course south polar skuas and snow petrels are occasionally seen there.
North Ice
North Ice was a research station of the British North Greenland Expedition (1952 to 1954) on the inland ice of Greenland. The coordinates of the station were , at an altitude of above sea level. The British North Greenland Expedition was led by Commander James Simpson RN. The station recorded the lowest temperature ever in North America with on 9 January 1954. The name of the station contrasts to the former British South Ice station in Antarctica.
Extremes on Earth
Satellite measurements of the surface temperature of Antarctica, taken between 1982 and 2013, found a coldest temperature of −93.2 °C (−136 °F) on 10 August 2010, at . Although this is not comparable to an air temperature, it is believed that the air temperature at this location would have been lower than the official record lowest air temperature of −89.2 °C.
Sodankylä
With a mean temperature of , Sodankylä lies just north of the mean annual isotherm and experiences a subarctic climate, with short, mild summers and long, freezing, snowy winters. Its extreme northerly location combined with frequent overcast skies leads to very low amounts of sunshine in the winter months; December will average just under two minutes of sunshine daily. Sodankylä experiences polar night between 20 and 23 December and polar day between 31 May and 14 July. The temperature is usually between and , but the all-time temperature range is between and recorded on 18 July 2018.
Geographical zone
The two frigid zones, or polar regions, experience the midnight sun and the polar night for part of the year - at the edge of the zone there is one day at the winter solstice when the Sun is invisible, and one day at the summer solstice when the sun remains above the horizon for 24 hours. In the center of the zone (the pole) the day is one year long with six months of daylight and six months of night. The frigid zones are the coldest regions of Earth and are generally covered in ice and snow. It receives slanting rays of the sun as this region lies farthest from the equator. Summer season in this region lasts for about 2 to 3 months and there is almost 24 hour sunlight during summer.
North Pole
The North Pole is substantially warmer than the South Pole because it lies at sea level in the middle of an ocean (which acts as a reservoir of heat), rather than at altitude on a continental land mass. Despite being an ice cap, it shares some characteristics with a tundra climate ("ETf") due to the July and August temperatures peaking just above freezing.
Pole of Cold
In the northern hemisphere, there are two places in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), Siberia, Russia that vie for the honour of being considered the "Pole of Cold" in winter. These are Verkhoyansk (located at ) and Oymyakon (located at ).
Antarctic Peninsula
Because the Antarctic Peninsula, which reaches north of the Antarctic Circle, is the most northerly part of Antarctica, it has the mildest climates within this continent. Its temperatures are warmest in January, averaging , and coldest in June, averages from . Its west coast from the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula south to 68°S, which has a maritime Antarctic climate, is the mildest part of the Antarctic Peninsula. Within this part of the Antarctic Peninsula, temperatures exceed for 3 or 4 months during the summer, and rarely fall below during the winter. Farther south along the west coast and the northeast coast of the peninsula, mean monthly temperatures exceed for only 1 or 2 months of summer and average around in winter. The east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula south of 63°S is generally much colder, with mean temperatures exceeding for only 0 or 1 month of summer, and winter mean temperatures ranging from . The colder temperatures of the southeast, Weddell Sea side, of the Antarctic Peninsula are reflected in the persistence of ice shelves that cling to the eastern side.
Precipitation varies greatly within the Antarctic Peninsula. From the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula south to 68 degrees South, precipitation averages per year. A good portion of this precipitation falls as rain during the summer, on two-thirds of the days of the year, and with little seasonal variation in amounts. Between about 68°S and 63°S on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula and along its northeast coast, precipitation is or less with occasional rain. Along the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula south of 63°S, precipitation ranges from . In comparison, the subantarctic islands have precipitation of per year and the dry interior of Antarctica is a virtual desert with only precipitation per year.
Ice cap climate
An ice cap climate is a polar climate where no mean monthly temperature exceeds . The climate covers areas in or near the polar regions, such as Antarctica and Greenland, as well as the highest mountaintops. Such areas are covered by a permanent layer of ice and have no vegetation, but they may have animal life, that usually feeds from the oceans. Ice cap climates are inhospitable to human life. Antarctica, the coldest continent on Earth, sustains no permanent human residents, but has some civil inhabitants in proximity to research stations in coastal settlements that are maritime polar and there are some communities that are situated in a transitional zone between the two climates, but barely qualify as a tundra. Some places like Antarctica had a different climate before having an ice cap climate.
Polar ecology
The temperatures are similar between the Arctic and Antarctic. The temperatures in the Arctic are different depending on the location. Temperatures in the Arctic have a higher range than in the Antarctic. Temperatures can range as much as . Along the coast in the Arctic temperatures average in December, January and February. The ice melts along the coast during the summer months which are around June, July and August and the temperature may rise a few degrees above freezing causing there to be some vegetation. During these same months in the northern regions there will be 24 hours of daylight. Arctic regions also receive a lot of snowfall. The Arctic Basin has snow 320 days out of the year while the Arctic Seas have snow cover 260 days a year. The thickness of the snow averages . In Greenland, temperatures have an average temperature of in the winter and in the summer the temperatures reach . Iceland on the other hand is in a subarctic region meaning it is near the temperate zone. Because of this the temperatures are above the freezing point throughout much of the year. In Russia temperatures are extremely cold. In Verkhoyansk, Siberia it has reached the coldest temp of in the Northern Hemisphere. The temperatures in the summer in Siberia can get to .
South Africa
The high Drakensberg mountains, which form the south-eastern escarpment of the Highveld, offer limited skiing opportunities in winter. The coldest place on mainland South Africa is Sutherland in the western Roggeveld Mountains, where midwinter temperatures can reach as low as . The Prince Edward Islands have colder average annual temperatures, but Sutherland has colder extremes. The deep interior of mainland South Africa has the hottest temperatures: a temperature of was recorded in 1948 in the Northern Cape Kalahari near Upington, but this temperature is unofficial and was not recorded with standard equipment, the official highest temperature is at Vioolsdrif in January 1993.
Winter Quarters Bay
Winter Quarters Bay is a small cove of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, located due south of New Zealand at 77°50'S. The harbor is the southern-most port in the Southern Ocean and features a floating ice pier for summer cargo operations. The bay is approximately 250m wide and long, with a maximum depth of 33m. The name Winter Quarters Bay refers to Robert Falcon Scott's National Antarctic Discovery Expedition (1901–04) which wintered at the site for two seasons.
Temperate climate
The temperate zones (latitudes from 35° to the polar circles at about 66.5°, north and south) are where the widest seasonal changes occur, with most climates found in it having somewhat balanced influence from both the tropics and the poles. The subtropics (latitudes from about 23.5° to 35°, north and south) have temperate climates that show further similarities with the tropics, usually having warmer summers and milder winters. The poleward outskirts of the temperate zones are where the coldest but yet temperate climates such as the boreal climate are found, with colder winters and milder summers, showing further similarities with the poles.
Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station
The station was constructed by U.S Navy Seabees led by LTJG Richard Bowers, the 8-man Advance Party being transported by the VX-6 Air Squadron in 2 R4Ds on 20 Nov. 1956. The U.S. Eighteenth Air Force's C-124 Globemaster IIs airdropped most of the equipment and building material. The buildings were constructed from prefabricated 4x8 foot modular panels. Exterior surfaces were four inches thick, with an aluminum interior surface, and a plywood exterior surface, sandwiching fiberglass. Skylights were the only windows in flat uniform roof levels, while buildings were connected by a burlap and chicken wire covered tunnel system. The last of the construction crew departed on 4 Jan. 1957. The first wintering-over party consisted of 8 IGY scientists led by Paul Siple and 8 Navy support men led by LTJG John Tuck. Key components of the camp included an astronomical observatory, a Rawin Tower, weather balloon inflation shelter, and a 1000 foot snow tunnel with pits for a seismometer and magnetometer. The lowest average temperatures recorded by the group were in the -90s F., though as Siple points out, "even at -60° I had seen men spitting blood because the capillaries of the bronchial tract frosted."
Climate of Antarctica
The mean annual temperature of the interior is . The coast is warmer; on the coast Antarctic average temperatures are around (in the warmest parts of Antarctica) and in the elevated inland they average about in Vostok.
Monthly means at McMurdo Station range from in August to in January.
At the South Pole, the highest temperature ever recorded was on 25 December 2011. Along the Antarctic Peninsula, temperatures as high as have been recorded, though the summer temperature is below most of the time. Severe low temperatures vary with latitude, elevation, and distance from the ocean. East Antarctica is colder than West Antarctica because of its higher elevation. The Antarctic Peninsula has the most moderate climate. Higher temperatures occur in January along the coast and average slightly below freezing.
Plateau Station
The average temperature of the cold season (from April to October) is about , while the average temperature of the warm season (from November to March) is about . Although the cold didn't reach the record set at the Vostok Station, the period of record was also very short. During the period of measurement, the average temperatures were consistently lower than Vostok. However the lowest temperature in the world was on August 10, 2010 with temperature equal to which is located in an unnamed plateau which is between Dome A and Dome F.
Southern Hemisphere
Owing to the tilt of Earth's rotation relative to the Sun and the ecliptic plane, summer is from December to March and winter is from June to September. September 22 or 23 is the vernal equinox and March 20 or 21 is the autumnal equinox. The South Pole is in the center of the southern hemispherical region.
Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station
The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Scientific Station is the southernmost habitation on Earth. It is continuously inhabited. Its name honors Roald Amundsen, whose Norwegian expedition reached the Geographic South Pole in December 1911, and Robert F. Scott, whose British expedition of five men reached the South Pole about one month later (in January 1912) in a race to become the first person ever to reach the South Pole. All of Scott's expedition perished during the journey back towards the coast, while all of Amundsen's expedition returned safely to their base on the seacoast of the continent.
Operation Deep Freeze
The operation involved the following ships:
On 31 October 1956, US Navy Rear Admiral George J. Dufek and others successfully landed an R4D Skytrain (Douglas DC-3) aircraft at the South Pole, as part of the expeditions mounted for the IGY. This was the first aircraft to land at the South Pole and the first time that Americans had set foot on the South Pole. The aircraft was named "Que Sera, Sera" after a popular song and is now on display at the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. This marked the beginning of the establishment of the first permanent base, by airlift, at the South Pole (today known as the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station) to support the International Geophysical Year. It was commissioned on January 1, 1957. The original station ("Old Byrd") lasted about four years before it began to collapse under the snow. Construction of a second underground station in a nearby location began in 1960, and it was used until 1972. The station was then converted into a summer-only field camp until it was abandoned in 2004-05. The mission's 2nd base, The Byrd Station a (former) research station established by the United States during the International Geophysical Year by the U.S. Navy during Operation Deep Freeze II in West Antarctica. The United States Antarctic Program airfield, built to service Operation Deep Freeze (first mission) was later named Williams Field or Willy Field.
South Island
The climate in the South Island is mostly temperate. The mean temperature for the South Island is 8 °C (46 °F). January and February are the warmest months while July is the coldest. Historical maxima and minima are 42.4 °C (108.3 °F) in Rangiora, Canterbury and −21.6 °C (−6.9 °F) in Ophir, Otago.
Pole of Cold
It is generally thought that Vostok is not the coldest place in Antarctica, and there are locations (notably, Dome A) that are modestly colder on average. The now inactive Plateau Station, located on the central Antarctic plateau, recorded an average yearly temperature that was consistently lower than that of Vostok Station during the 37-month period that it was active in the late 1960s, with its average for the coldest month being several degrees lower than the same statistic for Vostok. Plateau Station never recorded a temperature that surpassed the record low set at Vostok. However, temperatures at Plateau Station were only recorded during the 37 months that it was active. Had a lower temperature than the Vostok record occurred there at a later date, it would never have been recorded.