World's extreme weather records

Inhabited place with the lowest temperature

The coldest place inhabited by humans is the Siberian village of Oymyakon, Russia. In 1933, the temperature plunged to -68 C.

Lowest temperature

According to WMO, the lowest temperature noted was -89.2 C, recorded on July 21, 1983 in Vostok, Antarctica. Yes, Celsius, not Fahrenheit.
An absence of solar radiation, clear skies, little vertical mixing, calm air for a long duration and high elevation (3,420 meters) accounted for the frigid weather.

Coldest road

The Kolyma Highway (M56) in Russia is the coldest road on earth -- temperatures once plunged to -67.7 degrees C.
A section of the 2,031-kilometer highway is called the "Road of Bones" to commemorate the prisoners from the Sewostlag Labour Camp who died constructing the road and were buried beneath it.

Highest temperature

Death Valley, California, doesn't get its name for nothing. According to the World Meteorological Organization, the hottest temperature of 56.7 C was recorded there in the summer of 1913.   

Largest desert 
A desert is defined as an area that has no or very little rainfall. The largest desert in the world is Antarctica, which is 14 million kilometers squared and records only 50 millimeters of precipitation per year.The 9.1-million-kilometer-square Sahara, according to Guinness World Records, is only the biggest hot desert.

Largest non-polar ice field

You don't need to live in the polar regions to be stuck in the middle of a vast ice field.The 21,980-square-kilometer Kluane National Park and Reserve in Yukon Territory, Canada holds the record.    

Longest recorded dry period, Arica

The longest dry period in history was measured in years. There was not a single raindrop in Arica, Chile for more than 14 years, from October, 1903 to January 1918 -- a total of 173 months.

Greatest rainfall in 24 hours

The biggest rainfall in a day occurred with the passage of Cyclone Denise in Foc-Foc, La Réunion, an island in the southern Indian Ocean. Some 1.825 meters of rain fell over 24 hours, from January 7 to 8, 1966.

Greatest rainfall in one minute, Unionville

This record is owned by Unionville, Maryland, United States, when on July 4, 1956, 31.2 millimeters of rain fell in one minute.

To give you an idea -- in sub-tropical Hong Kong, the most severe black rainstorm signal will be hoisted if the rainfall exceeds 70 millimeters in an hour.

Heaviest hailstone, Bangladesh

The heaviest hailstone was discovered during a hailstorm in Gopalganj, Bangladesh on April 14, 1986. The storm killed 92 people and included one hailstone that weighed 1.02 kilos.

The Old Faithful geyser, with an average eruption height of 44 meters, is 20 meters short of Geysir Andernach.

Highest cold water geyser

Located in Andernach, Germany, Geysir Andernach usually blows water from 30 to 60 meters high. The highest ejection reached 61.5 meters, recorded on September 19, 2002.

Cold-water geysers are different from naturally occurring hot-water geysers. The cold underground water erupts from a drilled well. The Andernach well is more than 350 meters deep.