Climate
Astana is the second-coldest national capital in the world after Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, a position formerly held by the capital of Canada, Ottawa, until Astana attained capital city status in 1997. Astana has an extreme continental climate with warm summers (featuring occasional brief rain showers) and long, very cold, dry winters. Summer temperatures sometimes reach 35 °C (95 °F), while −30 to −35 °C (−22 to −31 °F) is common from mid-December to early March. Usually, the city’s river remains frozen from the second week of November until early April. Astana has a well-earned reputation among Kazakhs for its frequent strong winds, which are especially noticeable in the rapidly growing but relatively open Left Bank part of the city.
Overall, Astana has a humid continental climate classification in the Köppen scheme (Dfb). The average annual temperature in Astana is 3.9 °C (39.0 °F). January is the coldest month with an average temperature of −14.5 °C (5.9 °F) and record lowest is in January. 1893’s cold wave reached temperatures down to −51.6 °C (−60.9 °F).July is the hottest month with an average temperature of 20.6 °C (69.1 °F).