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New Record: Coldest Temperature in the Southwest Pacific Region (WMO Region V)

A World Meteorological Organization panel has concluded that a temperature of -25.6°C observed at Ranfurly in New Zealand on 17 July 1903 holds the record as the coldest temperature recorded for the Southwest Pacific Region. Over the last several months, a WMO international committee of experts conducted an in-depth investigation of the extreme for the Southwest Pacific region (WMO Region V). The investigation was conducted with the support of New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) for the WMO Commission for Climatology’s World Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes. The investigating committee was composed of climate experts from Australia, Egypt, France, Libya, Morocco, New Zealand, Russia, Spain and the United States of America. It was established following the 2011 discovery by NIWA staff of the Eweburn, Ranfurly 1903 temperature observation of -25.6°C (-14°F).