Travel to Greece’s own “Siberia” – The coldest place in the country

It long and cold winters

Greece experienced one of its coldest spells recently with snow covering most of the country last week. But the country’s northern parts are quite accustomed to very severe winters, and low temperatures, as they have been repeatedly recorded in Kato Nevrokopi of Drama giving it the title of “Siberia of Greece”.

A look at the temperature records of recent years reveals Kato Nevrokopi celebrated Christmas 2021 with -11 degrees Celsius, entered 2019 with -21, while 2017 closed the last days of January with -18. It also recorded -21 in December 2005, while it is rumored that there has been a temperature reaching as low as -28.

However, according to the official data of the National Meteorological Service the lowest temperature recorded were in fact not in the “Siberia of Greece” but was -27.8 in Ptolemaida in January of 1963, during the so-called “Ice Winter”. The second place was reported at Amygdaleonas of Kavala with -25, in January 1954.

However, it is not only the intensity of the cold that leads to parallels with Siberia in Kato Nevrokopi but also the duration of winter, which has reached an equally proverbial record. In 1996, it was suggested that the region had snow until the end of June, a period when many had already started bathing in the southern parts of the country.