Extreme Weather: 5 Things You Need to Know

A tornado that struck Anadarko, Oklahoma during a tornado outbreak in 1999. (Photos by Daphne Zaras/NOAA via Wikimedia Commons) — A tornado that struck Anadarko, Oklahoma, during a tornado outbreak in 1999. (Photos by Daphne Zaras/NOAA via Wikimedia Commons)

On this date in 1923, the town of Marble Bar, Australia, began a record-setting streak of 160 days with a temperature of 100 degrees Fahrenheit or above.

Here are some things you may not have known about temperature extremes around the world.

Marble Bar, which is located in northwestern Australia, has an average maximum temperature above normal human body temperature for 6 months of the year. It also has wildly erratic rainfall. The area has had years with as little as 2.8 inches of rain, and as much as 31.4 inches. A temperature below freezing has never been recorded there.

The highest temperature recorded anywhere was 134.1 degrees Fahrenheit at Furnace Creek in Death Valley, California on July 10, 1913. There is some controversy surrounding that record, however, as some believe the actual record to be about five degrees less than that, but also recorded at Death Valley, almost 100 years later in 2013. Fourteen countries have never broken 100 degrees, some of them like Iceland, Norway and Finland are obvious, however it also includes places like Singapore and the Cayman Islands.

The lowest temperature in a naturally inhabited place, 90 degrees below zero, was recorded in 1892 and in 1993 in Siberia. The coldest recorded anywhere was minus-128.6 at Vostok Station in Antarctica. 10 countries have never recorded a temperature below freezing, including Cuba, the Philippines, and the Maldives, which has a record low temperature of 63 degrees Fahrenheit.

The most rain in one hour was 12 inches, which fell on Holt, Missouri in 1947; the most rain in one day, was 71.9 inches on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion during tropical cyclone Denise in 1966. The most rain in one year was 1,042 inches, which fell on Cherrapunji, India in 1860.

The most snow in one day, is 100.8 inches, which fall in Capracotta, Italy in 2015, and the most snow to fall in a 1-year period happened at Mount Rainier, Washington, with 102 feet falling between February 1971 and 1972.

The fastest wind recorded was a 302 mph gust during a 1999 tornado in Oklahoma, while the fastest wind outside of a tornado or tropical cyclone was 231 mph, recorded in 1934 on Mount Washington, New Hampshire.

Our question: At what point do the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales intersect?

Today is Halloween. It’s also National Unity Day in India and World Savings Day.

It’s unofficially Carve a Pumpkin Day, National Caramel Apple Day, and Increase Your Psychic Powers Day.

It’s the birthday of painter Jan Vermeer, who was born in 1632; actor and comedian John Candy, who was born in 1950; and rapper Vanilla Ice, who is 49.

Because our topic happened before 1960, we’ll spin the wheel to pick a year.

This week in 1990, the top song in the U.S. was “Ice Ice Baby” by birthday boy Vanilla Ice.

The No. 1 movie was “Graveyard Shift,” while the novel “The Plains of Passage” by Jean M. Auel topped the New York Times Bestsellers list.