IStock Photo 10826056 © David Birkbeck

Weather can be brutal. The odds are 1 in 419,300 that a person will be killed by hazardous weather in a year—by flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, hail, drought, or extremes in temperature: the highest temperature ever recorded is 136 degrees F (in Libya); the lowest: -128 degrees F (at Vostok Station, Antarctica). And that's just on Earth.

Travel elsewhere in the solar system, and it gets much, much more extreme.

Like Standing on a Branding Iron. Take Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun. An airless rock, composed mainly of iron, it has no weather because it has no atmosphere. But without an atmosphere, its temperature varies wildly (temperatures hereafter are in degrees Fahrenheit and kelvins; “absolute zero,” the coldest theoretical temperature, equals -459.67 degrees F, or 0 kelvins). Under direct sun, Mercury gets up to 800 F (700 K). At that temperature, lead is a liquid. Without an atmosphere, though, heat quickly dissipates on the dark side of the planet, where the temperature can plummet to -300 F (90 K).

Like Wearing a Quilt in Hell. Venus has weather, and it’s beyond hellish. A blanket-like atmosphere of carbon dioxide keeps it even hotter than Mercury: the surface temperature is about 900 F (755 K), and it stays that hot day and night. It rains sulfuric acid. Dust and rocks are constantly blown over the surface, where the air pressure is about 90 Earth atmospheres. In 1982, the Soviet probe Venera 13 landed on the surface of Venus to send back data and color photographs. In those extreme conditions, the lander stayed operational for only 127 minutes.

Chilly, with a Chance of Dust Storms. By contrast, Mars is much more temperate. Sure, its temperatures fluctuate, but they're about as Earth-like as it gets: a mild 80 F (300 K) in the day, a sub-antarctic -200 F (140 K) at night. The killer, though, are the dust storms, planet-engulfing screamers that last for weeks. When those dissipate, dust devils still wander the surface (the Mars rover "Spirit" took a video-like string of photos of one, up close).

The Biggest Hurricane in History. Jupiter has one of the best-known weather systems anywhere: the Great Red Spot. The bigger the planet, the larger and longer-lasting its weather patterns—and the Great Red Spot is the end-all, be-all of storms. This Jovian hurricane has been around for over 300 years (maybe more) and could engulf three Earths at once. Since Jupiter—a gas giant—has no land, the storm has no continent to dissipate over. It just spins and spins, its winds blowing up to 250 mph.

Supersonic Winds. Saturn and Neptune are even more extreme, wind-wise. Uranus is colder than both, at -370 F, or 50 K, but it’s far less windy. Saturn sees gusts of 1,100 mph, and the winds on Neptune reach an unbelievable 1,600 mph. In terrestrial terms, that's over Mach 2! Neither planet has a solid surface, but their surface temperatures are very cold: approximately -300 F (90 K) on Saturn, and -360 F (55 K) on Neptune. In addition, Saturn has a giant vortex at its north pole, which isn't unusual—except that it’s hexagonal.

Sweating in Antarctica. For cold, Pluto is almost unrivalled. Pluto's average temperature is -380 F (45 K). That's the average. Since Pluto has an elliptical orbit, it gets even colder as it moves away from the Sun. During Plutonian winter, when it's furthest from the Sun, it snows nitrogen. The light atmosphere (nitrogen, methane, and CO2) freezes solid and falls to the ground. Then, as Pluto approaches the Sun again, the “snow” sublimates—turns directly into a gas again, forming an atmosphere once more. This sublimation acts like evaporating sweat: it cools the dwarf planet, maintaining its deep cold (other dwarf planets—Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and the super-distant Eris—have similar climates). But...

The Ultimate Cold. The deepest freezes in the solar system aren’t as far out there as you might expect. One is Triton, a Neptunian moon covered with frozen methane, and pocked with nitrogen geysers. The other is much closer to home: the Moon. In permanently shadowed craters at its south pole, the Moon’s lowest temperature matches or even beats Triton’s by a degree or two. Both spots are roughly -400 F (33 K), cold enough to freeze oxygen solid. To give you some idea of how cold that is, a cryonic freezing chamber is 75 F warmer.

So, other than Earth, Mars appears to have the most human-friendly environment. Before you begin planning a distant trip with Virgin Galactic, though, consider this: Mars does not have a magnetic field like Earth. Its core stopped emitting one 4 billion years ago. No magnetic field means little atmosphere, which means almost no protection from solar radiation: X-rays, gamma rays, punishing ultraviolet rays—even cosmic rays from deep space. The highest SPF sunscreen wouldn’t remotely cut it.

The weather outside is looking better already.