The North and South poles are very cold, which is why they're covered in snow and ice! Currently it's around -40F in the South Pole and a tiny bit warmer in the North Pole at -30F! To imagine just how cold is this, think of how much colder it would be compared to your household freezer which is around 25F.

That varies depending on the time of year.

The north pole is ocean, so beneath the ice the temperature will always about freezing (but salt water freezes at a colder temperature than fresh water). The south pole gets below -50 F during the winter, sometimes much lower than that.

Good question! The North and South Poles are very cold because they don’t receive much direct sunlight. In fact, the North Pole doesn’t receive any direct sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere winter (September through March), and the South Pole doesn’t receive any direct sunlight from March through September. The average temperature at the North Pole is about 32° Fahrenheit (that’s the temperature at which ice melts) in the summer and about –18° F in the winter ( polar temperatures ). The average temperature at the South Pole is about –40° F in the summer and –76° F in the winter.

One of the reasons that the South Pole is colder is because a really cold ocean current surrounds Antarctica that blocks warmer ocean waters from getting near the continent. The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was about –93° F ( click here to read ). That’s REALLY cold!!!

The South Pole consists of lots of ice on mountains, so it has a high elevation, while the North Pole is surrounded by sea so is mostly nearly sea level. The South Pole is colder than the North in the same way the mountains of Yosemite are colder than Goleta beach. The average elevation in the South Pole is 7500 feet (or 2.3 km).

Many countries have scientific stations in the Poles where they have thermometers so we can measure the temperature there. They also have live webcams, so you can see how it looks in real time.

If you want to find out the temperature in the Amudsen-Scott science station in the South Pole, visit weather antarctica

Right now, on March 11th 2015, it is -53F or -47 C in antarctica. It seems that the average temperature in the summer is -18F / -28C and in the winter -76F / -60C.

In contrast, in the North Pole, the average is much higher: 32F / 0C in the summer and -40F / - 40C in the winter.

However, the Amudsen-Scott station which is located at 2800m elevation, is not the coldest place in the continent! The Amudsen-Scott station is very close to the actual South Pole, almost in the middle of the continent. However, there is another station, the Vostok, which is closer to the ocean, but is located at an elevation of 3500m. Vostok is the coldest place on earth ! The coldest it got was in 1983, at -129F / -89C !!

If you visit, take lots of jackets.

It depends on what time of the year it is. My answers below are the average temperatures.

North Pole
Winter time is -34 degress F (really cold!)
Summer time is 32 degrees F (not as cold but still cold!)

South Pole
Winter time is -72 degrees F (super cold!)
Summer time is -15 degrees F

Note: the temperature at which liquid water turns into ice is 32 degrees F. So you can see how cold it is in the poles.

You can also see that the South Pole is colder than the North Pole. This is because the ice on the South Pole is on top of land, while the ice on the North Pole is on top of water. This water under the North Pole keeps it slightly warmer than the South Pole.