Antarctica Hits -84.1C (-119.4F) — Earth's Coldest Temperature Since 2012; Record Cold Sweeps Russia; Arctic Air Drives South Into Europe; + Trump Orders Review Of "Fraudulent" Climate Manuals
On July 18, Concordia plunged to -84.1C (-119.4F), the lowest temperature on Earth since Vostok's -84.2C (-119.6F) set September 2012.
Antarctica Hits -84.1C (-119.4F) — Earth’s Coldest Temperature Since 2012
Antarctica’s deep freeze intensified over the weekend.
On July 18, Concordia Station at Dome C plunged to -84.1C (-119.4F) at 6:25 UTC—the lowest measured air temperature on Earth since Vostok reached -84.2C (-119.6F) in September 2012.
ClimAntartide confirmed the reading—the third-lowest at Concordia since observations began in 2005 (record remains the -84.7C (-120.5F), set on August 13, 2010). The station’s daily maximum struggled to just -76.9C (-106.4F).
Daily records also fell at Dome Fuji. The station dropped to -80.4C (-112.7F) on July 17, breaking the date record of -79.8C (-111.6F) from 1999. On July 18, it plunged to -81.9C (-115.4F), besting the previous mark of -78.9C (-110F), also from 1999.
The cold engulfed the wider Antarctic Plateau. Automatic weather stations recorded -72C (-97.6F) at Henry, -75C (-103F) at Nico—both near the South Pole—and -81C (-113.8F) at Dome CII near Concordia.
Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station posted a maximum of only -70.8C (-95.4F) on July 17, with the following day reaching a max of just -71C (-95.8F). The minimum for Saturday came in at -76.2C (-105.2F) and so broke the July 18 daily record of -75.7C (-104.3F) set in 2006. The weekend made for the coldest multi-day stretch at the South Pole since August 2–3, 2019.
Record Cold Sweeps Russia
Russia broke at least nine low-temperature records between July 17 and 19 as midsummer cold spread across the country.
