Oymyakon is a rural locality (a selo) in Oymyakonsky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located along the Indigirka River, 30 kilometers (19 mi) northwest of Tomtor on the Kolyma Highway. It is one of the coldest permanently inhabited locales on Earth.

Oymyakon has two main valleys beside it. These valleys trap wind inside the town and create the colder climate. However, children are still allowed to go school if it is warmer than −55.0 °C (−67.0 °F).

During World War II, an airfield was built there for the Alaska-Siberian (ALSIB) air route used to ferry American Lend-Lease aircraft to the Eastern Front.

Climate

With an extreme subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification Dwd), Oymyakon is known as one of the places considered the Northern Pole of Cold, the other being the town of Verkhoyansk, located 629 km (391 miles) away by air. The ground is permanently frozen (continuous permafrost).

There is a monument built around the town square commemorating a reading in the 1920s of −71.2. This was shown on the Australian programme 60 Minutes in a 2012 documentary.[8] On February 6, 1933, a temperature of −67.7 °C (−89.9 °F) was recorded at Oymyakon's weather station. This was the coldest officially recorded temperature in the Northern Hemisphere. Only Antarctica has recorded lower official temperatures (the lowest being −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F), recorded at Vostok Station on 21 July 1983).

The weather station is in a valley between Oymyakon and Tomtor. The station is at 750 meters (2,460 ft) and the surrounding mountains at 1,100 meters (3,600 ft), causing cold air to pool in the valley: in fact, recent studies show that winter temperatures in the area increase with altitude by as much as 10 °C (18 °F).

Some years the temperature drops below 0 °C (32 °F) in late September and may remain below freezing until mid-May. In Oymyakon sometimes the average minimum temperature for January, February and December remains below −50 °C (−58 °F). Sometimes summer months can also be quite cold, but June and July are the only months where the temperature has never dropped below −10 °C (14 °F). Oymyakon and Verkhoyansk are the only two permanently inhabited places in the world that have recorded temperatures below −60.0 °C (−76 °F) for every day in January.

Oymyakon has never recorded an above-freezing temperature between October 25 and March 17.

Although winters in Oymyakon are long and excessively cold, summers are mild to warm, sometimes hot. The warmest month on record is July 2010 with an average temperature of +18.7 °C (65.7 °F).[citation needed] In June, July and August temperatures over 30 °C (86 °F) are not rare during the day. On July 28, 2010, Oymyakon recorded a record high temperature of 34.6 °C (94 °F), yielding a temperature range of 102.3 °C (184.1 °F). Verkhoyansk and Yakutsk are the only other places in the world with a temperature amplitude higher than 100 °C (180 °F).

The climate is quite dry, but as average monthly temperatures are below freezing for seven months of the year, substantial evaporation occurs only in summer months. Summers are much wetter than winters.