Kathmandu is actually very warm. The average high is 25.6 Celcius and the mean temperature is a balmy 18.9. It's only 4,600 feet above sea level and its latitude is similar to Miami.
This was great! I ran out of northern countries and could not figure out Bern but not Vienna, etc. Kiev but not Budapest, Sofia, etc... Prague but not Slovakia. Then I remembered mountains, micro-nations. Loved it!
Guess what I did ?............. got half way and then tried Kazakhstan and when it did not work tried Countries instead of Capitals till time ran out ............ what a dingbat!
can someone please explain to me how bolivia (la paz) is so cold? It is right by the equator and in between countries like argentina, brazil, uruguay, peru, etc. which are all very warm year round
Andes, my friend, Andes. And the cold Peruvian current. Peru and Bolivia are the most influenced by it. While there's warm Brazilian current on the other coast. This is why Buenos Aires and Montevideo are warmer than Lima, which is FAR FAR north than Argentina and Uruguay capitals.
have you ever been to South america? la paz is located on the andes, argentina, chile and uruguay have TEMPERATE climates, not "very warm year round" as u describe it, it's more similar to southern Europe
Oh man, tried Wellington and DC to rule out Oceania and North America and then guessed Ulaanbataar and after that completely focused on Europe. So I missed Ottawa, Astana and la Paz. Eejit. Good quiz, thanks.
Surprising Amsterdam isnt here, since it is on the same latitude as berlin and more northern than luxembourg. I know it is closer to the sea, but still weird to see. (I live about 120km inland from amsterdam and indeed it is a couple degrees colder here usually, but part of that is also big city vs countryside. Buildings trap the heat, from all the people and cars)
I can remember it being bitterly cold in Holland during the winters of '85 and '86. I have the photos of the Loosdrechtse Plassen frozen solid in February. And I had no ice skates! But I suppose it will have been even colder further East.
Given seasonal changes, where in the summer the average high may be 30°C (16 above annual average), and in the winter the average low may be −2°C (16 below), it is quite reasonable that the ideal average annual temperature be around 14°C (and this is coming from a Malaysian).
For comparison, the average annual temperature of London is 11.2°C, Berlin 13°C, New York 12.1°C, Rome 15.7°C, Madrid 13.7°C, Bangkok 28.1°C.
I don't see which where I mentioned any other locations... another case of some old comment of mine gone inexplicably missing?
but... here's some points to contrast:
Phuket, perfect island paradise, has an annual mean of approximately 27 degrees, making it ever so slightly warmer than the ideal of 25. The hottest month is March, with a mean of 28.5. The coldest is January, with a mean of 27. Can we just take a moment to appreciate how freaking amazing that is? the difference between hottest and coldest months is a mere 1.5 degrees... No sweltering summers or frigid winters like in the temperate (read: usually too hot or too cold, rarely just right) Washington DC suburbs where I grew up, no freak blizzards in late March or heat waves at Christmas, no getting snowed in for a week in January, no old people dying when it gets too hot in August because they live in Germany and don't have AC.
No requirement to check the weather every single day just to see if you need to put on a scarf, or a jacket, or an overcoat... or if it's going to be too warm for a sweater or long sleeves... nope... just... perfect, amazing, pleasant weather every single day. Bring a couple t-shirts and a couple pairs of shorts and you are literally good for the entire year. Are you a nightowl like me that wants to go out for a cruise in your convertible or on your motorbike at 4 am? No worries... it's still t-shirt weather in the middle of the night, just like it was that afternoon. Perfect. No pain in your joints and itchy dried out skin in the winter months even when you are indoors. And no days so hot that turning on the AC won't cure it.
(I should have noted that the ideal is 25, AND, importantly, the less variance from that mean the better)
Compare this to... chilly, dreary, depressing, oft-frozen Berlin.. if we trust Jack's figures with an annual mean of 13.
This is way, waaay too cold. Not only do you have days in August when the low is 13, which is absurd, nobody should have to wear an overcoat in the middle of the summer... it also rarely gets above 23, EVER, which is STILL too freaking cold! The hottest month in Berlin is July with an average temp of 18; the coldest is January where the AVERAGE temp is -1. The freaking AVERAGE... Ugh. Never, ever, ever do I want to be somewhere where it has to be a warmer than average day to be ABOVE freezing. That is just extremely masochistic. Nope. Nope. Nope.
Further... there are freak temperature spikes, too. The hottest temp ever recorded in Berlin was 37.9, which, while still far preferable to -1, is still unpleasant and too hot. But this is actually hotter than Phuket has ever been. The lowest temp recorded in Berlin was -26... which is something that I've never experienced in my life and hope never to. That's like... Antarctica numbers. wtf. Nobody should live there apart from penguins
Madrid (13.7 mean, according to Jack) is much much closer to being habitable than Berlin... I would even consider living there. It's nice in the summer time and also much sunnier than Germany. But it's still *too cold* in its annual average.
Summers in Madrid are actually perfectly fine... in July and August the average temperature is 24.5 degrees... just a tad below perfect. But then... the rest of the year? By October the average temperature is down to 15, and it stays that way until May. 15 is way too freaking cold! That's the setting my crazy Arab coworkers in Dammam used to set the thermostat at. Sitting in the office trying to do my work my fingers would get so frozen and stiff and numb after an hour or so I could no longer even type.. I'd have to go outside to where it was 50 degrees and thaw out for a few minutes before going back in. And then the average low temp in January is just 1 degree. No freaking way.
if you need colder than that sometimes then take a vacation to a ski resort 1 week out of the year... but... no way on Earth I'd want to live some place like that.
Pretty surprised by Berlin! It does get cold there, but it also gets really really hot in the summer (I've seen it at 39°C), so I thought it would somehow balance out - but then again, you could probably say the same thing for Moscow or Warsaw (the only time I went to Warsaw was in June 2019, and I've never been so hot in my life - lovely city, though). Friggin' continental climate!
same thing for Ottawa. Throughout the year it can swing between +40 in the summer and -40 in the winter. Not super common temperatures, but not insanely rare either.
Really surprised by Luxemburg. I used to live near there and it's well known for being roasting in the summer. Must be pretty frigid this time of year.
Some countries have more than one capital, like the Netherlands or South Africa. The federal capital is just the one where the heads of government meet, and is usually the one most often recognized as "the" capital. It has nothing to do with whether or not the country itself is unitary or a federation.
I knew one of them had to be up in the mountains somewhere! I tried Tbilisi, I tried Kathmandu, I tried Lima (not actually sure if it's anywhere near the mountains, but I knew the Andes are tall) - and of course, I missed the one I knew somewhere in the back of my mind was the capital with the highest elevation.
Curious that Bern and Luxembourg are amongst the coldest, but Vaduz is not. Is Liechtenstein more clement than I imagine it being for a mountainous country?
MONGOLIA?
BOLIVIA?
LUXEMBOURG?
end my life plz
For comparison, the average annual temperature of London is 11.2°C, Berlin 13°C, New York 12.1°C, Rome 15.7°C, Madrid 13.7°C, Bangkok 28.1°C.
but... here's some points to contrast:
Phuket, perfect island paradise, has an annual mean of approximately 27 degrees, making it ever so slightly warmer than the ideal of 25. The hottest month is March, with a mean of 28.5. The coldest is January, with a mean of 27. Can we just take a moment to appreciate how freaking amazing that is? the difference between hottest and coldest months is a mere 1.5 degrees... No sweltering summers or frigid winters like in the temperate (read: usually too hot or too cold, rarely just right) Washington DC suburbs where I grew up, no freak blizzards in late March or heat waves at Christmas, no getting snowed in for a week in January, no old people dying when it gets too hot in August because they live in Germany and don't have AC.
(I should have noted that the ideal is 25, AND, importantly, the less variance from that mean the better)
Compare this to... chilly, dreary, depressing, oft-frozen Berlin.. if we trust Jack's figures with an annual mean of 13.
Further... there are freak temperature spikes, too. The hottest temp ever recorded in Berlin was 37.9, which, while still far preferable to -1, is still unpleasant and too hot. But this is actually hotter than Phuket has ever been. The lowest temp recorded in Berlin was -26... which is something that I've never experienced in my life and hope never to. That's like... Antarctica numbers. wtf. Nobody should live there apart from penguins
Summers in Madrid are actually perfectly fine... in July and August the average temperature is 24.5 degrees... just a tad below perfect. But then... the rest of the year? By October the average temperature is down to 15, and it stays that way until May. 15 is way too freaking cold! That's the setting my crazy Arab coworkers in Dammam used to set the thermostat at. Sitting in the office trying to do my work my fingers would get so frozen and stiff and numb after an hour or so I could no longer even type.. I'd have to go outside to where it was 50 degrees and thaw out for a few minutes before going back in. And then the average low temp in January is just 1 degree. No freaking way.
The ideal average temperature is 25C. Full stop.