Temperature contrasts in Russia reached 85.6 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, the biggest difference in a single country since 1954, according to data from the Climate Reanalyzer website. The temperature in Shatoy in the southern republic of Chechnya reached 24.5 C, while 6,000 kilometers away in Oymyakon in the republic of Sakha it dropped to -61.1 C. “Sub -60 degrees Celsius is rare and has not been observed outside Greenland plateau in the Northern Hemisphere for 10 years,” meteorologist Scott Duncan tweeted Thursday. Temperature anomalies and extreme precipitation levels are becoming the new normal for as climate change accelerates, UN scientists warned in their August IPCC report. As Russia is warming three times faster than the planet as a whole, the scale of climate extremes in the country could be more visible than elsewhere. “In the 2020’s we have to pay special attention to heatwaves and droughts in Southern Russia and more extreme precipitation in other parts of the country,” the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) Russia’s head of climate and energy research Alexei Kokorin told The Moscow Times.
The usual daytime temperature difference between northern and southern parts of Russia is 10-15 C, lead scientist at the Phobos weather center Evgeniy Tishkovets told the state-run TASS news agency. He added that what happened on Dec. 8 was an “extreme anomaly,” and that in European parts of Russia alone the difference was as big as 50 C. In Pskov, a town 500 kilometers west of Moscow, the temperature dropped to -25.8 C – an all-time low for the date. Meanwhile, Volgograd, Astrakhan, Sochi and several other southern towns saw record-breaking hot temperatures. Oymyakon’s -61.1 C temperature on Wednesday was the lowest December temperature in Russia since 1984 and one of the lowest ever recorded in the country. Since 2008, the temperature has not dropped below -60 C, meteorologist Thierry Goose tweeted. While Russia’s 85.6 C contrast is massive, the all-time record still belongs to 1954, when the temperature contrast across the United States reached 88 C.  Hawaii has the nation's narrowest temperature range of any state thanks to is tropical location surrounded by water. The state record high was set in April 1931, and the state record low was set in May 1979 at an elevation of 13,733 feet. July 10, 2013 marked the 100th anniversary of the official record-high air temperature on the planet Earth, and it took place right here in the U.S. – 134 degrees at Greenland Ranch in Death Valley National Park on July 10, 1913. But did you know that California has also had extreme subzero cold? One way a state can see huge ranges in temperatures is to have a wide range of elevations – and California is tough to beat in that category, with Death Valley sitting 282 feet below sea level while 14,000-foot mountain peaks sit less than 100 miles away. Another recipe for huge temperature ranges is to sit as far as possible from oceans. Large bodies of water heat and cool slowly, keeping adjacent land areas milder in winter and cooler in summer relative to areas farther inland. A third factor in having a climate of wild temperature swings is latitude. Places in the tropics do not have marked seasons, as days do not vary greatly in length over the course of the year. As a result, they don't see huge changes in the amount of sunlight they receive. By contrast, the farther north you get from the tropics, the larger the difference in the length of daylight between seasons. This amplifies seasonal differences – and the difference between the hottest and coldest days. In the slideshow above, we take a look at these differences in all 50 states. Each state is ranked by the difference between its all-time record high and its all-time record low, as determined by the National Climatic Data Center. On each state map, red icons mark the location(s) of the state record high, and blue icons mark the location(s) of the state record low. The slideshow starts with the narrowest temperature range – tropical Hawaii – and finishes with the largest temperature range. Find out what state that is, and where your state ranks, by clicking the arrows to navigate through the slideshow. Follow Nick Wiltgen on Twitter
Difference distibution for all U.S. cities (pop. 50,000+)
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