What Are The Most Extreme Weather Conditions You Have Ever Experienced?
I haven't experienced anything too extreme. The hottest temperature I've experienced was 37 C in southern Portugal in the summer of 2004. It was brought about by wind blowing from the Sahara desert. There was extremely fine dust in the air. The sky wasn't the deep blue it had been for the first ten days of our holiday but slightly brownish/reddish particularly in the evening. The hottest weather I've experienced at home was 33 C in Tampere, Finland in July 2010. The all-time heat record, 37.1 C, was broken near Joensuu in the eastern interior of the country that summer.
The coldest temperature I've experienced was somewhere around -30 C to -31 C, which has happened on many occasions all over the southern part of Finland. The all-time record cold in all of Finland was -51.1 C in Kittilä, Lapland on January 28 1999. I've heard the winter of 1939/1940 was extremely cold. The temperature fell to -32.9 C even in Helsinki on the south coast on January 17 1940, which was the coldest day of the war.
Even winter nights don't seem to ever get much colder than -30 C in the south of the country. The far north beyond the arctic circle is a very different story. I've been to many ski resorts in Lapland many times but never in the dead of the winter. The best time to go is from mid-March to mid-April. Snow is guaranteed as is night frost but the kind of extreme bitter cold possible in January or February is highly unlikely to occur. Also, the sun won't rise for many weeks around winter solstice which makes it a bit boring if you like winter sports. Of course, the pistes are lit and there are cross-country skiing trails that are lit but you'll miss most opportunities if you go there in the middle of the winter.
There are small and infrequent tornadoes in late summer in August. I've never seen one with my own eyes. They are smaller than the giants regularly seen in North America but they can do considerable damage.
I think sometime last year it rained heavily for more than 5days. The streets were flooded and we had episodes of thunderstorms which damaged our ceiling fan.
One of the coldest night of my life was in camp yesterday. We woke up around 5 a.m. everywhere was foggy and we had to move around to stay warm
It's usually very hot in Lagos. Unfortunately, I don't go out much. I think we had up to 39°c-40°c earlier this year.
I've seen flooded streets even here where it usually doesn't rain that intensely.
Here's how it looked after a couple of afternoons of torrential rain here in Lahti on August 1 2018:
I think the coldest that I ever experienced was the "Polar Vortex" that gripped the midwest in 2012 and 2013. Both years were just unbearably cold, and I grew up in Minnesota! A small town about 5 hours away set a record cold of -85°F. It was so cold, exposed skin would freeze solid in 5 minutes. It wasn't quite that bad where I lived, but -65°F is cold, no matter what way you slice it!
-85 F = -65 C. -65 F = -53.8 C.
Why wasn't the first figure mentioned here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_territory_temperature_extremes
I take it back. Grand Marais Airport recorded -63°F, not -85°F. Which means we were probably closer to -50°F down here in Minneapolis. And it was 2014. Good god, am I already going senile?
Edit: Source: https://www.twincities.com/2014/12/25/all-about-that-polar-vortex-top-5-minnesota-weather-events-of-2014/
That's more like it. -63 F is -53.9 C which is perfectly credible for Upper Midwest. Temperatures around -45 C have been measured in New England, too. I remember the winters of 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 having been cold here. Perhaps in North America, too.
Around 45 degrees in Rajasthan in the month of May last year, that year it also touched 50 but I came back at that time.
How does that feel?
Hot really hot. The problem is your body does not function well in that scratching heat and that makes the difference.
I take a sauna once a week where the temperature is 80-100 C and the air is humid. But I only sit there for 10-15 minutes and I do nothing but sit. I can imagine it must fee much worse than the 33 C or so that I have experienced here a few times in the past five years or so.