Coldest City in the United States

by Liz Osborn © Current Results Nexus

The major US city that ranks as the coldest in the country depends upon what aspect of temperature you're measuring.

If coldest is measured as the lowest that the temperature has ever dropped to, then Denver, Colorado is the coldest city in the United States. Denver has recorded the lowest temperature of any large American city, at -30 °F. With an average 156 days a year when the thermometer registers below 32 °F, Denver also gets a lot more freezing weather than any other big US city.

On the other hand, if what you rank is lowest average yearly temperature, then Milwaukee, Wisconsin tops the list as America's coldest city. The daily temperature in Milwaukee averages 47.5 °F over the year, which is several degrees colder than Denver and a few other large cities.

No matter how you consider cold though, Milwaukee, Denver and Chicago always show up among the five most frigid of the 40 largest cities in the United States.

The tables below list major cities in the US ranked for lowest record temperature, lowest average annual temperature and most days a year below freezing

Major cities included in these weather rankings are all the cities in the United States with over 440,000 people on July 1, 2006, according to the US Census Bureau's estimates.

Lowest Temperatures

Coolest Weather