Those swirling lines and triangular symbols on a weather map are a language. Once you can read it, a single chart tells …
Sharing your station’s data to networks like Weather Underground and the Ambient network is free, easy, and turns your h…
Measuring air temperature accurately is far harder than it looks, and most home stations get it wrong for one avoidable …
Fog is simply a cloud at ground level, but the different ways it forms explain why some mornings are socked in and other…
A heat dome can lock a region into days of dangerous, record-breaking heat. The mechanism behind it is a particular trap…
La Niña reshuffles weather patterns across the globe in broadly predictable ways. Here’s what the pattern is, and the ki…
Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, sits on the flat, treeless steppe in the north-centre of the country, on the Ishim River far from any ocean at approximately 51.16°N, 71.47°E. Its extreme continental position gives it a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb) — with brief warm summers and ferociously cold winters — making it the second-coldest capital city in the world.
Summer, from June to August, is pleasantly warm and quite sunny, with July averaging around 21°C, though heatwaves can push temperatures past 37–38°C. Rain and thunderstorms are fairly frequent, and this is the wettest part of the year. Spring and autumn are very unstable: in April and October the temperature can fall below -15°C or exceed 25°C, and the clash of air masses generates strong winds.
Winter, from November to March, is long and ferociously cold, with January averaging around -14.5°C and severe cold spells that can plunge to -40°C; the official record is -52°C. Strong winds sweep the open steppe, driving blizzards at speeds exceeding 40 metres per second, and the low winter sun shines less than half the time from October to January.
Astana is dry, receiving only around 340 mm of rain or snow a year, with a relative maximum in summer from thunderstorms and a minimum in winter; the deeply continental steppe, thousands of kilometres from any ocean, keeps the air arid year-round. Live rainfall, humidity, and pressure readings for the city are shown in the panels above.
Astana is the second-coldest capital city on earth, after Ulaanbaatar, with January temperatures averaging -14.5°C and a record of -52°C. There is no shelter on the open steppe: winter blizzards driven by winds over 40 metres per second bury the city in snow, while the same winds carry dust and sand across the plain in summer.
To follow any single measurement in Astana more closely, use our live instruments: the online barometer for atmospheric pressure, the thermometer for temperature, the hygrometer for humidity, the anemometer for wind speed, the wind vane for wind direction, and the rain gauge for rainfall.