New All-Time Cold Record For Northern Hemisphere Verified in Greenland, But There's a Catch

Chris Dolce

Published: September 23,2020 

Earth's Northern Hemisphere has a new all-time record cold temperature, but it happened nearly 30 years ago.

A temperature of minus 93.3 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 69.6 degrees Celsius) was recorded on Dec. 22, 1991, by an automated weather station in a remote location of central Greenland called Klinck, according to a report released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Wednesday. This location is close to the highest elevation point of the Greenland ice sheet at just over 10,000 feet.

This extremely cold temperature has beaten out the previously recognized Northern Hemisphere all-time record low of minus 90 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 67.8 degrees Celsius) set twice in Russia at Verkhoyanksk (February 1892) and Oimekon (January 1933).

The all-time coldest temperature record for the entire world remains minus 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit set at Vostok, Antarctica, in July 1983.

One weather station in a temporary network that was launched to study the Greenland ice sheet by the University of Wisconsin-Madison captured this newly-recognized record. After the station completed its data collection for a period of about two years in the early 1990s, it was returned back to a laboratory in 1994 where it was tested and redeployed to Antarctica.

A WMO panel tracked down the scientists involved in that study in order to help verify this new record. The record was accepted by the WMO after a review of the equipment, observation practices and the weather pattern in place during December 1991.

Image from WMO press release of the weather station.

“This investigation highlights the ability of today’s climate scientists to not only identify modern climate records but to play climate detective and uncover important past climate records—thereby creating a high-quality long-term record of climate for climate-sensitive regions of the world,” said Professor Randall Cerveny, Rapporteur of Climate and Weather Extremes for WMO in a press release.

The WMO maintains an extensive list of verified weather records for the world. Among the records kept are temperature, rainfall, strongest wind gust and even the heaviest known hailstone.

One current WMO investigation is whether a temperature of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit at Verkhoyanksk, Russia, on June 20, 2020, was the hottest temperature on record north of the Arctic Circle. Oddly, Verkhoyanksk is one of the two Russian locations mentioned earlier that previously held the record for the coldest Northern Hemisphere temperature.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.