We Found the WORST Weather on Earth
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ต.ค. 2023
- Thank you to Wren for supporting PBS. www.wren.co/start/terra
As viewers of our show and most inhabitants of planet earth probably already know, the weather down here can get pretty crazy. But we got curious and asked: just HOW EXTREME can weather actually get on earth? So we decided to travel the world in search of answers and discovered not only some fascinating answers, but some pretty interesting questions along the way. Like, how do you even measure the most extreme weather anyway? Is it according to precipitation? Or wind? Or temperature? Some combination of these elements? Or something else entirely?
Well, in this episode of Weathered, we dig into all of these questions. And we actually found a place that many experts agree is, indeed, home to the world’s worst weather. And it’s not where we expected at all.
Weathered is a show hosted by weather expert Maiya May and produced by Balance Media that helps explain the most common natural disasters, what causes them, how they’re changing, and what we can do to prepare.
This episode of Weathered is licensed exclusively to TH-cam.
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The maps that zoom in and show elevation/topography while still showing you the actual landscape are absolutely * chef's kiss * incredible, they illustrate the point so well and help me understand WHY these events happen so much more
It’s Google Earth lol
@@OtterPup_ Mapbox actually smart a$$.
@@OtterPup_I like turtles
Perhaps an even bigger contributor to the Atacama's aridity that went unmentioned is the Humboldt current, which brings very cold antarctic surface waters up along the Chilean and Peruvian coasts to almost the Ecuador border. This is why there are penguins living on offshore islands at Paracas, why those coasts are shrouded in fog for much of the year, and why, despite being at only 15 degrees south latitude, firmly within the tropics, Lima has average annual temperatures similar to Los Angeles (34 degress north), though with much less rain.
This very cold surface ocean water cools the air above, resulting in much lower water carrying capacity, and thus no ability for this cold moist foggy air to produce any rain.
Additionally, unusually cold water in the subtropical South Atlantic prevents hurricanes from forming there
200M $ THAT IS LOST TO USA NOT TO ANY OTHER COUNTRY
yes, that makes a high pressure system that is omnipresent on the ocean and in the desert all the year, it only moves a little when there is El Niño.
@@ashokkumar-se5slare you on the wrong video???
@@cleokatra ashokkumar-se5sl is probably one of those people you see who randomly posts family photos to the actual Google HQ on Google Maps.
9:16 Glad they could get footage of how our grandpas got to school back in the day.
Lol, I live in NH and spent most of the video wondering why Mt. Washington wasn’t mentioned when talking about wind speeds.
Now I’m wondering why I need to keep relearning patience; you got me. 😅
Probably because of the low Tsunami Danger.
When mentioning hot places I think other places worth mentioning are:
- Basra, Irak, which has some of the highest summer temperatures for a large city (Death valley may be hotter but it is also basically uninhabited).
- Bangkok, Thailand, which has one of the highest average wet bulb temperatures (not extremely hot, but an extreme combination of humidity and heat all year round).
- Dallol in the Danakil Depression, Ethiopia, which is like if you placed Yellowstone into Death Valley. The peak temperatures aren’t as high as in Death Valley, but there is also nothing resembling winter there and the yearly average temperature is an insane 34C/94F.
Would love to visit the Danakil depression and see Erte Ale up close, incredible place, it's so far off from anything I have seen in my temperate European climate
The Danakil Depression is extreme for another reason: it is the only place on this planet where no life exists due to a lethal mix of chemistry and extreme geothermal heat.
I agree that frequent extreme wet bulb events should've been one of the factors mentioned.
Bangkok was unreal hot when I was there. Wake up at 8am, go to the closed window, felt like I was in a straight up broiler. Like bruh now I know how Dracula feels during the daytime
Kuwait City is also worth mentioning for being very nearly as hot as Death Valley in summer and about as hot as Basra. It is also very humid compared to Basra or Death Valley, resulting in extremely high wet bulb temperatures.
I was born and raised in New England and was always regaled with stories about how Mt Washington had "the Worst Weather" and after having been all over the US and learned about other places and even lived a dozen years in Colorado I had wondered how that was possible. I started looking into it and it's been hard to convince me over the years but yeah, they just seem to have the confluence of factors just right and you summed them nicely here. It's really kind of wild, I mean look at the satellite imagery, the top of that mountain is just bare rock at just 6000ft, it gets hammered year round!
I'm a Wellingtonian and the wind is very handy for running but not feeling tired. It does the work for you. The gaps between buildings can funnel it to pretty dramatic affect too. However you don't notice it much day-to-day
What happens when you have to run in the other direction?😋
(sorry, I couldn't resist)
There are still plants growing in the Atacama, they scoop up moisture from the fog. "Crime pays but botany doesn't" has several vids exploring both the fog deserts at the coast and inland Chile. it's a great watch if you like a sharp tongue, a thicc Chicago accent, pungent seals, sketchy climbs, and weirrrrd ass plants ^^
Hes amazing! Love CPBBD !!
@@thathobbitlife yeah, the most scatter-mouthed botanist that I know of lol, love him too ^^
Is that the desert where people hung up nets with a gutter underneath on a mountain ridge to collect water from the fog?
@@kellydalstok8900 I didn't know someone did that until I read your comment ^^
@@kellydalstok8900 i believe they do that in perú, don't know if they do that also in chile.
I definitely agree Mt. Washington takes the cake by having all those forces align to make it so devilishly difficult weather wise... And I say this as an Albertan who had to permanently flee my house this year due to wildfires after suffering from both -40c and +40c temps the year before...
40 is the record. Recorded very few times in alberta. Dont make it sound like a regular event
Hello from Wellington New Zealand. It’s very still here today. I have lived here for 50 years and I am convinced the weather has changed and it’s not as windy as it used to be! I don’t know if data would back me up.
Wellington represent
Yay! As a New Hampshire resident, I am happy whenever we are mentioned! Mt. Washington really is quite an anomaly and it's always fun to see what temperature it is compared to the rest of the state
Right? Go, Mount Washington!
Mt Washington is along the storm track off the Great Lakes and the one along the eastern seaboard/gulf stream. It’s likewise near where the jet stream is located.
Fun fact:
Antarctica has only 2 inches of precipitation a year, same as Death Valley.
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Fantastic review. Not just a 'worst weather' list like some clicky channels, but also WHY these areas have such extreme weather. I guess that's the PBS touch! In a part 2, if you do a follow up, I'd like to know where the most humid area is on Earth, as in something like the wet bulb temperature...a place that might be deadly to humans because the humidity is so high you can't sweat.
I can tell you that some areas near the Persian Gulf have experienced extreme humidity during the summer months. But if you're looking for an overall average high humidity, I'd guess somewhere near a warm body of water near the equator would be on top.
The East coast of Greenland has the worst weather outside Antarctica, especially the South East. People have tried to live there in the past, but have given up.
I knew that Mt. Washington had bad weather but it's really bad. -108°? I'd love to visit the place but not in the winter. Thanks for another excellent learning experience.
Atacama desert isn't just very dry, portions of it are also very high altitude - high enough that you need some sort of respirator and water would boil at very low temperatures.
I agree with the label of the worst weather. Many times we think of the worst weather as the most destructive weather. However, I feel the label of worst to most destructive enters in when one discusses the impact on humans/communities. Love your videos !!!!!
Wonder how many of these records are because they happened in areas where weather is observed a lot more. Parts of the world that lack modern meteorological monitoring on a constant basis might experience even more extreme conditions sometimes but we don’t know about it because it goes unrecorded.
Possibly the reason why US has so many 'the most' something places.
I disagree. Unless you mean in the 90s. Maybe in the past, but not now. We mapped the entire Earth via satellites so I don't see the topography being exactly very subjective. Every individual country doesn't need to send their own to provide data to make an accurate representation. For wind/rain/snow, than yes. To a degree (aka more tech than we'd even understand) But not for the surface/landscape. Which is what 20%-30% of this video was about: the topography. That is a necessary ingredient for disaster. Not just the weather itself.
So let's talk about the weather:
What countries don't have weather reporting? Even the poorest of countries, the least populated, and the least technologically developed countries ALL have weather stations that report rainfall, wind, and other weather abnormalities just like anywhere else.
"Even in the poorest countries, you can find microscopic pockets of corrupt individuals living luxuriously."
And they want their weather too! As do governments.
Just because the average person cannot see it like we can on TV (since most don't have any) doesn't mean that someone isn't keeping record somewhere.
TL;DR maybe prior to say ~1975, but not now. People in places of higher power/govement officials want to know if they're going to get rained on as much as anyone else, you can bet they'll invest in the county's tech to do so. Not a single govement/country is free of some type of corruption. But that means we all get weather data. Probably. I don't know. It's just an argument.
Another contender I think is Oymyakon in Russia. It has the coldest average temperature in winter, while also being relatively warm and rainy in the spring, having one of the largest temperature variations in the world.
I’m fairly certain temperature variation isn’t the only factor.
А нам нравятся холод 😂
I saw something once about a region in Siberia that due to a bowl effect, had some of the hottest and coldest temps on Earth, as well as receiving large amounts of precipitation. For the life of me I can't find the source, though.
Maybe you're thinking of Verkhoyansk?
@@inari.28 YES. Thanks, you rock!
@@doggonemess1 No worries! :)
Death Valley is in a graben, just like Verkhoyansk Russia. That is why they are the hottest and coldest places on earth respectively.
You explained it well, but a graben is a valley between two mountain ranges.
I backpacked the Presidential Range (which includes Mt Washington) and it was the toughest trail I've ever done...this made me feel a lot better about it kicking my butt!
You mention katabatic winds but don't mention one of my favourite extreme weather locations, the McMurdo Dry Valleys! Antarctic cold, fast katabatic winds, and extremely low humidity (it's possible it hasn't precipitated there in literally millions of years!)
before wathcing: wettest is either the congo rainforest (average) or south asia during the summer monsoon (record), the windiest is mt. washington (record) or the tibetan plateau? Maybe??? (average), and the driest is antarctica, and the hottest is death valley (for record) or somewhere near the persian gulf (for average). most mesocyclones in central US, most tropical cyclones in the bay of bengal... i think
Agh, the atacama!! rookie mistake.
wellington and commonwealth bay, interesting!!! I had no idea
The music in this episode was much better than usual. I would prefer if there was none at all, but this is definitely an improvement over previous videos. Thank you.
I'm cool with Mt Washington being a geographic location with extreme weather in combination, but I'm now curious about a location that has the hottest, stillest, wettest weather. I say this because Mt Washington has the coldest, windiest, wettest, but that's not quite as terrible a combo (for some) as hot, stagnant humidity.
There is an episode of weathered about wet bulb temperatures that could answer your question
I’ll take the heat and humidity over that any day
Most equatorial climates will be consistently hot, humid, and not windy, with little variation throughout the year. So, what you'd probably be looking at is any tropical rainforest location within a few degrees of the equator. Somewhere around New Guinea, Indonesia, the Congo rainforest, or the Amazon rainforest would probably be a good bet. Doesn't seem quite so bad to me (though the tropical diseases and mosquitos are another thing...).
Colombia's Chocó region (on the Pacific coast) has an especially nasty combo of some of the highest rainfall in the tropics (which means many times more precipitation than Mt Washington), rugged terrain, and lack of clean drinking water.
Not year-round, but central Florida in August is brutal for the strong sun, still air- too far from any coastal breeze- and almost daily showers.
Life in the northeast of the US is a good time. 100 degrees in the summer and humid as balls. Sometimes -40 in the winter. Sometimes droughts, sometimes historic flooding. Two years ago we got 48 inches of snow over night in NY and 2 days later it was 70 degrees, and this was around the end of December. Did the same thing in March 4 years before. It’s like a box of chocolates.
Atleast it isn't boring. And normally the variance isn't nearly that extreme.
I still say that the only consistent dangerous weather in NY is ice storms / winter weather which can't kill you if you aren't an idiot. (Every way that winter weather has to kill you is preventable)
I feel the same being in southern Ontario, I'm in Toronto by lake Ontario. One bonus is we don't get the Buffalo NY level of snow because we're not in the snow belt (thankfully).
You want sunshine all year round? No, that's boring.
@@Agent-ie3uv sunshine every day is perfect, but that doesn't mean that we still can't have a variety of weather. I don't like hot, but a beautiful sunny fall or winter day is great, especially when the sun reflects off the snow and blinds everyone. I would like rain and snow fall to occur at night but that's just me.
I don’t mind NY weather, I wish it was cooler in the summer, or at least less humid, I hate the heat, and sunny days give me anxiety about all the things I should be doing. So I’m fine with snow and rain. Winters my favorite season, but we don’t get consistent snowfall like we did when I was a kid so it sorta sucks now.
*I really enjoyed listening to her, extremely helpful and intelligent. Knowledgeable*
I wonder what place has the highest frequency of electrical storms; the most thunder and lightning?
Really enjoyed this piece. Not only informative but entertaining too! Great job by the PBS Terra team, as usual. 😊
5:37 "Oh Wellington is wonderful! we love the Wind the rain and the Phoenix!!!" Man i miss welly
I’ve hiked over Mt Washington! I remember the observation station having footage of the insane wind speeds. Very cool video, thank you! 🙏👍
Love this series. Thank you.
Love you guys. Forever learner, thanks for another good one
We were driving up the auto road on Mount Washington years ago , it is fairly hair-raising ride. My family was freaking out so much I had to turn around , which is a thing in itself. This was in the summer.
In another video you could talk about Punta Arenas in Chile. The city is in Canal de Magallanes (far south) and it’s so windy that wind turbines need to be turned off at some hours. I have read a lot of times that Punta Arenas might be the best piece of land for wind energy. The only problem for the energy development is the amount of birds that migrate between Tierra del Fuego and northern Canadá every year
In my library I have an account of a winter climb on Denali, titled "Minus 148" from the windchill encountered by the climbers. That was not an official measurement, so I guess it can't count as a record, but I am sure the mountains of Alaska or the Himalayas experience conditions worse than Mt. Washington but aren't home to weather stations to record what happens.
I think the place with the worst weather would have to score pretty well in all the categories you mentioned. A place where it’s dry but also gets a lot of rain, and gets really hot & really cold, and is also really windy. The confluence of all those things is what I would say is the worst weather.
I guessed Mt Washington for the wind, so I guess it was sorta correct, lol. I recall the weatherman that was on duty at that location was interviewed by one of the national news channels earlier this year.
Awesome video. This was a question ive been asking myself for awhile. Thank you for this 🙂
Great video but Surprised Japan wasn’t on here, in Japan, because of its geography and topography they get the most snow out of anywhere in the world. Many locations see over 400” annually. Mainly because in Winter the Asian continent gets really cold which causes sinking air and high pressure and that pushes air away and moisture away. It’s why Asia is so dry in winter during the dry season of the Monsoon. But because Japan is an island surrounded by water, as the cold arctic Siberian winds blow across the relatively warmer Sea of Japan, it picks up moisture that has been evaporating, because colder air can no longer hold as much water as warmer air, the water precipitates out of the air but because it’s so cold it is snow plus due to the Orographic lift of the Japanese Alps, the moisture is forced up in altitude which drops the pressure even more and the air becomes even colder causing more water to be squeezed out of the atmosphere causing huge amounts of snow.
What’s interesting, as Global Warming continues to warm the oceans, that acts as more fuel for lake/ocean effect snowstorms so warmer water actually means more evaporation and because warmer air can hold more moisture (even if it remains below freezing) means more snow. NOAA has a great analogy with a Teapot over the ocean generating steam which in turns precipitates when it cools and condenses.
I read somewhere once that the Khasi Hills and the surrounding area, while considered the wettest place on Earth, actually don't receive rainfall year round - mainly during Monsoon season, and thus still experience droughts and lack of water at other times of the year!
That is true. While the rainfall is unending during the monsoon, the months of October to February is very cold, dry and sometimes the locals do have troubles with water. These days it's not a big deal since rainwater harvesting and water planning is in place, it was once a big problem. But this just tells you how extreme the rain is. The 1042" of rain that you see is dumped over a period of about 4-6 months. This does however create a very unique, lush and ecologically megadiverse tropical and subtropical rainforest.
10:00 The way he's sliding and bumping around like a curling stone 😂😂I'm literally LOLing
When I climbed the Mt Washington, New Hampshire in USA few years ago.... The weather fluctuation was EXTREME and changes by the minute. No kidding I thought I almost died with the temperature fluctuation and Horizontal Wind hurricane level force that literally blow me off my feet. And black ice literally everywhere on the slope. I ended up had to flag down a passing vehicle to climb down the mountain because my knees literally gave out after falling down like a dozen time.
WELLINGTON!!! We possibly have the fastest burn time too... when that cold air rushes in from the south it does NOT bring cloud cover. So it burns in just a few minutes. It is also sucking up heaps of moisture from the sea as it does, so at night, when the air cools back down, it brings the northern clouds with it.
This was very interesting and the explanations were very clear!
Sounds like Mount Washington is the most exciting mountain in the world, never a dull moment if the weather is trying to kill you every day -
Been to mount Washington long ago. Never going back
Mount Washingtons massive winds and wetness means that Tuckermans Ravine, a big cirque below the summit, is guarranteed huge snow accumulations and excellent late spring skiing [no lifts though - you have to hike up].
I’ve gotta work Nebula into what is currently my Patreon budget. Half my subscription feed is on Nebula already and I definitely want to support projects like this!
When Mt. Washington hit -108, the entire state of New Hampshire was in an EXTREME cold spell. I think we hit around -15 or -20 in coastal New Hampshire. I wasnt surprised at all when i saw the record on the Mountain. Then 3 months later we were at the top of the mountain in 60 degree sunny weather. Love my home state.
In northern Maine we have about 150 days with snow on the ground. You definitely gotta love it to live it ⛄️
Very interesting video indeed. You know what should come next. The place (or places) with the best weather on Earth. I think most viewers are contemplating that right now. Very good job everyone.
Yeah it's 200 degrees on the ground but it's not so bad because it's at least a dry heat.
I was in palms springs last summer when they came close to breaking the death valley record again (its much cheaper to go during the summer, and we were already booked. Even that far away, it was BOILING
The islands in the far southern ocean, like south Georgia, Macquarie Island, Bouvet and so on have insanely strong CONSTANT winds, its always wet and cold but rarely get proper snow, extreme waves... just wild.
Driest place on earth is in Antarctica. The atacoma gets a heavy fog coming off the pacific ocean , death valkey gets rain. The place in Antarctica is so cold no moisture ever makes it there in any way. Theres no such thing as the west hemisphere . Theres only a northern and southern hemisphere. A spinning sphere has no east or west place on the sphere.
I live in Gallup and we have a ton of both extremes in temperature, wind, aridity, and monsoon rains.
It feels especially ominous to me, that a mountain as old as Mt. Washington is home to this extreme and brutal weather. The Appalachians (which the White Mountains are a part of) already gave me a weird feeling - they're older than animals with bones, they were once contiguous with the Scottish Highlands & Norway... and now one of them is an ice-hurricane nightmare peak.
.....That's metal as hell.
Interesting. Thank you. 😊
Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela is pretty extreme. If you have metal in your body stay way. Highest amount of Lighting strikes in the world
I visited NZ in ‘10 and we took the ferry across the strait from Wellington to the South Island. So gorgeous!
0:39 lol poor guy
Thanx, Mrs. May.
I would say the northern Great Lakes are a close second; Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan specifically.
Atacama is also so dry because of the cold Humboldt current at the coast of Peru...
I really enjoy Maiya May as an expert host
Atacama Desert had rain a few years ago. Death Valley is a bowl below sea level so the heat intensifies and is kept inside moreso than anywhere else. Yuma/Imperial Valley is 2nd hottest in US behind Death Valley and is not as extreme as Death Valley
I’d bet the top of Denali puts Mt. Washington to shame.
6:39 That's so cool so the sky literally falls in Antarctica.
good work.
what about Lake Maracaibo's lightning? or Oymyakon's average winter temps of -72F? or the Danakil Depression with their hottest averages at 120F and all the mud volcanos? not to mention it's at something like 400 feet below sea level. it'd be great to see more.
I live right next to Washington. Had the first snow fall up there already.
The shops at the end of my street create a double Venturi effect. When it's from the right direction the wind gets a 20mph boost due to the two air streams meeting at a 90 degree angle. To make things worse, there's no way out because of the housing being so tightly packed in two parallel lines.
Illinois is totally temperate...yeah, we get tornadoes and blizzards, but they are few and far between.
Hoping this channel moves on using predominantly metric measurements to the rest of the world can watch, listen and understand
I’m onboard with that! And I’m in the U.S. I’m trying to be better about learning/knowing/using metric measurements.
This was a cool video as a meteorologist myself.
I live near mount washington. Last winter was the worst on record.
STILL WAITING FOR THAT WEATHERED CAP lol
If I could I would build my home in the top of Mt. Washington. Perfect!
How about doing a video about the most survivable places once the climate change effects REALLY start to bite? Places where temperatures rarely or never reach extremes and where precipitation rarely causes serious flooding, yet ensures enough water for human consumption and irrigation, not to mention extras like hydroelectric power generation.
Mount Washington is what I would nickname " Mini Antarctica."
This video remembers me how incredible is our world
Take the Mt. Washington cog railway to the summit in the summer or fall. The views are amazing!
Some places that I think are worth mentioning is my whole country which is the Philippines. The number of typhoons hitting us every year is just absurd compared to other countries. I've become so used to it that I become unfazed whenever I hear a typhoon forming. It is so common that in certain months, typhoons literally bombard us one after another without rest like it's not even a week when the last typhoon hit and there's another one coming straight toward us like wtf, at least give us some time to recover.
Thank you for such an informative video.
The Atacama Desert (the driest in the world) is a cold-arid (Bwk) type desert like the Gobi Desert of China and Mongolia; and contrary to hot-arid type deserts (Bwh) such as the coastal desert of Peru, the desert of northwest Argentina, the Sahara desert or the Sonoran desert. The average maximum temperatures of the Atacama Desert range between 20° to 27° and the minimum temperatures between -1° to 8° (Weatherspark) it even snows in the interior valleys of the desert.
The Dry Valleys in Antarctica are supposed to be completely devoid of precipitation for millions of years, making them drier than the Atacama
It rains to 37 degrees F here and wind at the same time to the point it dries legit freeze drying
I would have thought that the dry valleys of Antarctica would be even more dry than the Atacama.
There are several valleys in Antarctica which are drier than the Atacama desert. They have not had rain for nearly 2 million years.
It's cool to see how much the mountains affect weather.
Poor dude at 0:38 seconds in! Lolz 😂
Mountain at ocean precipitation effect, my thumbnail I'm standing August 12, 2008 at 900 feet above the World's Record Snow Fall looking down at the ski resort place (95 feet deep snow pack 1998/9). In 2011 there was snow pack 62 feet deep in July exactly where I'm standing so the ploughed bit ended 4 km back (900 feet down).
6:00 Cosita jajaja no conoce el Estrecho de Tehuantepec...
My wife and I climbed MT Washington in June and froze. Even with a coat on Also was at its base I January visiting the ice castle and it was white out conditions
4:42, can anyone explain how the low elevation of the region heats it rather than cools it? Doesn't cold air sink? As far as i understand, because the lowest possible point for the air to go is a place where it gets super heated, it creates a natural convection of sending hot air up, receiving cooler air, then heating that air up, creating a positive feedback loop where the air actually continues to get hotter, hence the oven analogy.
How does mount Washington get food and water? Are there days when it’s calm and ok? How do you get up there?
That’s cool and all, but it’s definitely Relámpago del Catatumbo