Top 5 Coldest Places in The World

Sniffing or coughing? Feeling like this cold weather should do and come and be going already? Pretty sure you're not the only one who feels that way right now.

When the harmattan winds arrived just over 3 weeks ago, it was greeted with joy, seeing as everyone was more than fed up with the prevalent blistering hot weather. With the holidays over now and many people generally growing impatient with the harmattan weather and the pesky side attractions - dust, haze, catarrh and cold - it was only fitting to do a post on some other regions of the world where cold is practically a given for extended periods.

These are five of the coldest places in the world:

1. Oymyakon – Russia

This place has been dubbed the coldest town on earth - because it actually is! In 1924, a Russian scientist, Sergey Obrychev measured and registered the lowest temperature −71.2 °C recorded at Oymyakon’s weather station. It is the lowest recorded temperature for any inhabited region on the planet. There are about 500 persons inhabiting the town.

2. Vostok Staion - Antarctica

With the lowest recorded temperature being -89.2℃, this is by far the coldest spot on earth. It is a research station founded by the Soviet Union in 1957 and it is located about 800 miles from the Geographic South Pole, at the center of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and within the Australian Antarctic Territory.

3. Prospect Creek – Alaska, USA

This is the region with the lowest recorded temperature in the United States. On January 23, 1971 the record low temperature of −80 °F (−62 °C) was recorded in Prospect Creek, Alaska. It is a region renown for extended periods of winter and short summers.

4. Eismitte – Greenland

Eismette was the site of an arctic expedition that took place in Green land in the early 1930s. The coldest temperature recorded during the expedition was −64.9 °C. The name "Eismette" means ice centre in German and translates as mid-ice in English.

5. Verkhoyansk- Russia

Verkhoyansk seems to be in a fierce battle with Oymyakon over which region is the coldest, most miserable place to live in Russia (if not the world). It is located on the Yana River near the Arctic Circle, 92 kilometers (57 mi) from Batagay, the administrative center of the district, and 675 kilometers (419 mi) north of Yakutsk, the capital of the Sakha republic in Russia. 1,311 people are estimated to live there.