Coldest City in the United States

For coldest weather, Minneapolis tops the list of America's 51 largest urban centers. The metropolitan region, which also takes in St Paul, Minnesota, has the most days a year of below-zero weather and the lowest average annual temperature.

The next coldest city, Milwaukee, lags a long ways behind Minneapolis on all measures.

The only city to surpass Minneapolis in cold is Denver, which averages ten more days a year of freezing weather. But Denver has far fewer days of extreme cold, and has a much higher mean temperature.

These rankings of coldest cities use long-term temperature averages, based on weather data collected from 1981 to 2010 for the NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.

The major cities included in the weather rankings below represent the 51 metropolitan areas in the United States with the most people, all those with over one million residents in 2010, according to the US Census Bureau.

Lowest Temperatures

Most Freezing Days

Coolest Weather