How Africa News
We all like to snuggle up beside the fireplace during the cold winter, but the climates of these top ten coldest countries in the world are unbearable. Even when the sun is out, it is dull and keeps the citizens freezing through the years!
10. Mongolia
While personally I’d spend a white Christmas in Scotland and give my hand and heart for it, but if it is to experience only winters, you might want to visit this landlocked country in central Asia, and oh its placed between Russia and China! There are two more nations awaiting your visit now. The usual average temperature they believe is less than zero degree Celsius in Mongolia. While the coming months are surely dropping to as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius, April to October would be more comfortable at slightly above freezing temperatures. Don’t raise that eyebrow on the comfortable, not so much for me. I probably can’t survive where water freezes and precipitation bites, but that’s a personal choice. Ain’t it?
9. Estonia
If Mongolia hasn’t had you face the chill and get chilly goose bumps as yet, there’s a slight warning that that was just the beginning. While they argue it isn’t as cold as Mongolia, I still choose to feature it as colder than it. Why? Because it is my list and I structure it exactly as I desire. Or maybe that it might not be mostly colder yet it’s more unpredictable and drops to lower temperatures and rises to higher too. The cold is mostly biting since the rainfall visits like an unwanted guest and goes when it pleases and it has no fixed arrival or departure at all. So you see how the sunny went from cloudy to snow?
8. Finland
While Finnair happens to be my much preferred airlines with the transit flexibility it has to offer (Oh yes Lufthansa, you disappoint majorly), Finland might not really be on my list of transits if not absolutely compulsory, especially in the season that is now. The northern most country in Europe differs from most Nordic countries. While the summer is tolerable at almost freezing temperatures, the winters drop to even minus 25 degree Celsius (how I wish I could minus that much from my weight), Lapland might be colder. It’s the coldest region in the country for a reason. Oh yes, it receives as little as 6 hours of daylight in winters, Do they even call it a day?
7. Kazakhstan
Contrary to the popular belief of Kazakhstan having a comfortable Asiatic climate, the country has pleasant warm summers and biting cold winters. If you visit in the heat you’ll be sure it never gets cold and when it is cold you’d be sure as hell that this place sees no sunlight. The rainfall is harsh and erratic, the cold biting and frosty. Astana, the coldest city in the country will not let you escape a outward trip without your toes suffering major frostbites.
6. Iceland
Just the name does the speaking? Not so much, it gets colder than ice almost all through the winters. Summers too are almost ice like. While the lower regions are at freezing temperature, higher altitudes may subject you to up to (Or as low as) minus 30 degrees Celsius (which by the way once went to as low as minus forty degrees). Freezing already? Yeah, it’s Icelandic here too.
5. United States of America
Where the world is mighty, the United States of America is mightier. They’ve seen minus 30? Visit Alaska and you’ll face minus 62.2 degrees Celsius. Does that temperature even exist? I doubt. Probably they are just so numb that they call minus 20 as minus 62 or whatever. Won’t you be frozen human if it be otherwise? Come on now. But that said, even Washington has snowfall that might cover even 1100 inches of total area. Am I shivering? Totally am. Give me some heat radiators or eat me frozen.
4. Canada
While it is home to the coldest city in North America (namely Snag, Yukon), Canada homes diverse temperature regions otherwise. While the temperature of Snag fall as low as minus 63 degree Celsius, it remains colder because there are mountains (Read obstacles) that block the warm air over the Pacific Ocean. The Prairie Provinces too might get harsh on your tolerance for though the temperatures are not too low yet the winds don’t help keep up with the frosty bites. You know why Edward Cullen shone like snow? Because at temperatures like those you’d be snow.
3. Russia
I don’t have to give an account of this or more for you’ve witnessed the cold in movies too many. (All documentaries on major wars whatsoever. The maximum temperature in January is minus 8 degree Celsius (bet your minimum is higher) while the minimum falls to about minus 27 degree Celsius as an average. The summer has a maximum of 3 degrees (So much for positive temperatures, their average body temperatures are in minus too?) Oymyakon is the coldest village in the world and yes you guessed it right, it’s in Russia too. Temperatures as low as -71.2 degree Celsius (I can see snow in my room now). There are no mobile phones and graves take 4 days to be dug with hot coals thawing the ground. You don’t need freezers to preserve decay though.
2. Greenland
Know that area on the map which they said was European and you thought was American? You have sure been confused more so if you’re not an American or European. While the average temperatures remain at approximately minus 9 degrees, the hottest months are spent at 7 degrees. There’s no sunlight they see entering the atmosphere for the country they say is covered by a massive ice sheet. In the middle of the Greenland Ice sheet, there is a British research station North Ice that hits as low as minus 86 degree Celsius. Oh yes it’s the coldest, there is no more chill I’d want Greenland-ers to bear.
1. Antarctica
Oh yes I know it’s not a country but I still don’t know why it ain’t divided into countries. The treaty and all that I know. While Antarctica is mostly believed to be somewhere most north, it is rather somewhere down south. Locate it now? It is the coldest country, actually coldest continent in the World. While the temperature kills at as low as minus 89.2 degree Celsius, the biting dry winds and precipitation is torturing your existence. Living there is nothing to be boastful of, only very stupid (If I so may say). So while I began at recommending the coldest places you’d want to visit, I’d rather say most are best not visited. We’d rather live in artificial igloos and let ice skating be our best snow adventure.
