What is the most extreme temperature in a desert?

Answer 1

The most extreme hot temperature in a hot desert reached a record of 159.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime summer months in Gandom Beryan, a lifeless plateau in the Dasht-e Lut desert, Iran where it is covered in dark dry lava rocks. This could be because it is so dry allowing a lot of strong sunlight to bake the surface, it is very low elevated, and it lies near to 30 degrees latitude where air tends to sink increasing temperatures. Unlike the Dead Sea it doesn't have a water source to keep temperatures cooler so it stays a hot baking dry place.

The most extreme cold temperature in a polar desert reached a record of -132 degrees Fahrenheit in a dead winter calm clear night recorded in Vostok Station in Lake Vostok, Antarctica. It is so cold that the lake itself is covered with a 2 mile thick ice layer that never seasonally melts. This could be because since its in Antarctica, the largest polar desert in the world, it gets very low precipitation where it can be really dry where most of its heat radiates out into space at winter nights, during the daylight summer the angle of sunlight is always more spread out and doesn't really heat up the surface as much leaving cold daylight summers, it is in the middle of east Antarctica where elevation is usually high, and Lake Vostok is more like a shallow bowl where colder air can sink into.

Answer 2

The highest temperature ever reliably recorded in a desert was 134 degrees F. on July 10, 1913, at Furnace Creek in Death Valley in the Mojave Desert.