Website review
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What is Extreme Weather Watch?
Extreme Weather Watch is a website founded in 2021 that offers a simple interface for looking up historical weather records. Rather than providing live forecasts, it focuses on the past: all-time highs and lows, average temperatures and rainfall, and year-by-year record summaries, organized so you can drill down by place.
Its main practical strength is geographic coverage and comparison. You can browse climate records by U.S. state (including territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam), Canadian provinces and territories, Australian states, and a long list of other countries from Austria to Uzbekistan. It also provides head-to-head tools: country weather comparisons, city comparisons, U.S. state capital comparisons, the 100 largest U.S. metros, and the 25 largest Canadian metros. A temperature converter and a blog with annual record roundups (for example, a review of records broken in 2025) round out the site.
Who it suits
- Students or writers who need a quick historical record or average for a specific place.
- Travelers or relocators comparing typical temperatures and rainfall between two candidate cities or states.
- Curious readers who want to see which records fell in a given year.
Trade-offs to expect
- It is a records-and-averages reference, not a forecasting service, so don't rely on it for tomorrow's weather.
- The comparison tools are most useful for broad patterns; for planning a specific trip, check a dedicated forecast source closer to your dates.
- As a newer site, its value depends on how completely its record pages are filled in for the place you care about.
A useful next step: if you are weighing a move between, say, Austin and Portland, open the city comparison tool first to see average temperatures and rainfall side by side, then check each city's all-time high and low pages to understand how extreme conditions can get. For official U.S. climate records and normals, the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information is a good cross-check.
How can I find historical weather records for a specific U.S. state?
Use the state list on the Extreme Weather Watch home page: select the state name under "Climate Records by U.S. State," then browse the records for that state. The site says it was founded in 2021 to provide an easy interface for historical weather records, and its state list covers all 50 states plus territories such as Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa.
For a specific state, these are the most useful entry points from the page:
- State record pages — reached from the "Climate Records by U.S. State" list.
- State comparisons — "U.S. State All Time Highs," "U.S. State All Time Lows," and "U.S. State Average Temperatures and Rain" for putting one state's numbers in context.
- City and metro comparisons — "U.S. State Capital Comparison" and "100 Largest U.S. Metros" if you need a city rather than a statewide figure.
- Unit conversion — the temperature converter, useful if a record is published in units you don't normally use.
A practical example: if you want to know how hot your state has ever been, open the state page and check its all-time high, then use the all-time highs comparison to see how it ranks against neighboring states.
One decision criterion: statewide records describe the state as a whole, not your town. If you need local numbers, start from a city or metro comparison instead. The site also publishes blog articles, including a 2025 records review, which can be a quicker route when you want a summary rather than a single figure.
How do I compare weather between two countries or cities?
Use the Country Comparison, City Comparison, U.S. State Capital Comparison, or one of the metro comparison pages on Extreme Weather Watch. Those pages exist specifically to put two places side by side, so you don't have to assemble the data yourself.
The site is built around historical weather records rather than forecasts. The homepage describes it as a 2021-founded project offering "an easy interface to see historical weather records," and its comparison tools are organized by geography: countries, cities, U.S. state capitals, the 100 largest U.S. metros, and the 25 largest Canadian metros.
Which comparison page to pick
| You want to compare | Use |
|---|---|
| Two countries | Country Comparison |
| Two cities | City Comparison |
| Two U.S. state capitals | U.S. State Capital Comparison |
| Large U.S. metro areas | 100 Largest U.S. Metros |
| Large Canadian metro areas | 25 Largest Canadian Metros |
| Two U.S. states | State Comparison |
If your two places aren't both covered by a single comparison page, compare them one at a time against a common reference point, such as a nearby city or the relevant state or country page. State-level pages are also available for U.S. states, Canadian provinces and territories, Australian states, and a set of other countries.
What to focus on
Weather comparisons are most useful when you decide in advance what "better" means for your situation:
- Temperature range matters if you care about extremes, not just averages.
- Rainfall and cloud cover matter for outdoor plans, agriculture, or mood.
- All-time highs and lows are useful context, but they describe rare events, not typical conditions.
- Season changes the answer completely. A city that wins in July may lose badly in January.
The site also has a Countries by Cloud Cover page and a Convert Temperature calculator, which are handy when you're comparing places that report in different units.
A practical example
Suppose you're choosing between two cities for a spring trip. Open the City Comparison page, check average temperatures and rainfall for your travel month, then cross-check the all-time records for that city to see how volatile the weather can be. If one city has a much wider record range, pack for more variability.
A note on scope
This is a historical records site, not a forecast service. Use it to understand what a place is typically like and how unusual a given season has been; check a dedicated forecast source for what's coming next week.
What are the all-time high and low temperatures for each U.S. state?
Extreme Weather Watch does not list each state's all-time high and low on its home page, but it offers dedicated entry points for exactly that: "U.S. State All Time Highs" and "U.S. State All Time Lows" under its State Comparison section, alongside state-by-state climate record pages.
How to use it
- Go to Extreme Weather Watch.
- Use the "U.S. State All Time Highs" or "U.S. State All Time Lows" link to see states side by side.
- For a single state, open its page from the Climate Records by U.S. State list (Alabama through Wyoming, plus D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico and American Samoa).
What to expect
This is a comparison and lookup tool, not a narrative article. It is best for quick answers: which state holds the hottest or coldest reading, and how your state ranks. The site also covers Canadian provinces, Australian states and a set of other countries, so you can extend the same comparison beyond the U.S. If you need the underlying station data or the date a record was set, treat the site as a starting point and verify against the official national or state climate agency.
How can I convert temperatures or use the site's weather calculators?
Extreme Weather Watch includes a small set of weather calculators, most notably a temperature converter, alongside historical record pages for U.S. states, Canadian provinces, Australian states, and several other countries. The calculator is a straightforward utility: you enter a temperature in one scale and it returns the equivalent in another, useful when a record page or article reports values in units you don't normally use.
Extreme Weather Watch
How to use it
- Open the site and find the "Calculators" section, then choose "Convert Temperature."
- Enter the value you want to convert.
- Select the input scale (for example, Celsius) and the output scale (for example, Fahrenheit).
- Read the converted result and, if you're comparing it with a record, note which scale the original figure used.
When this is actually useful
- You're reading a record like an all-time high for a U.S. state, which the site presents in Fahrenheit, but you think in Celsius.
- You're comparing a Canadian province or an Australian state with a U.S. state and want both figures in the same unit.
- You're checking a blog article about a year's broken records and want a quick sanity check on how extreme a number really is.
A practical caveat
A converter only changes units; it doesn't tell you whether a figure is a daily, monthly, or all-time record, or how far back the underlying station data goes. Treat the converted number as a starting point and read the surrounding record page for context.
Next step
If you're comparing places, open the site's country or state comparison pages and convert each temperature to your preferred scale before you compare — that avoids mixing Fahrenheit records with Celsius averages. For general unit conversions beyond temperature, use a dedicated converter such as National Weather Service reference material or a standard calculator tool; the site's own calculator set is focused on temperature.
What weather records were broken in 2025 according to Extreme Weather Watch?
Extreme Weather Watch's 2025 year-in-review is a blog-style recap rather than a data table, and the page itself only teases it: the summary line says "nothing really happened, but we can still talk about the weather" before linking to the article on the site. The specific records — which stations set all-time highs or lows, which states or countries saw their warmest or wettest year — are listed inside that post, not on the homepage, so the homepage alone won't answer the question.
If you want the actual 2025 record list, open the "2025 Weather Records" article at Extreme Weather Watch and read it there.
How to get more out of it once you're in the article
- Note whether each record is a daily, monthly, or all-time mark. Daily records fall constantly and mean little on their own; all-time records for a station or state are the ones worth quoting.
- Check the location granularity. A record for one city is a local story; a statewide or national record is a different claim with a much higher bar.
- Compare against the site's own comparison pages if you want context — the state all-time highs and lows, state average temperature and rainfall, and country comparison tools are all linked from the same homepage.
A practical scenario
Suppose you're writing about whether 2025 was unusual where you live. Start with the 2025 recap to see if your state or province appears, then use the state comparison and all-time high/low pages to see how that year sits against the full record. That pairing — one year's headlines plus the long-run baseline — is what turns a list of broken records into a defensible statement.
Decision criterion
Treat the recap as a curated highlight reel, not a complete archive. If you need every record for a specific place and date, the state and province pages are the better starting point; use the 2025 article for narrative and the biggest outliers.
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