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).
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.