On 28 December, the temperature at the Mars Gale Crater was -9.4 degrees. At Antarctica’s Amundsen-Scott weather station, mercury was at about 1 degree. That’s rather pleasant weather for some Canadians who are witnessing one of Canada’s coldest winter spells since 1993 with temperatures breaching the -40 degree Celsius mark in some parts, according to Environment Canada meteorologist Alexandre Parent.

While daily life and infrastructure have taken a beating because of the really, really cold weather, some Canadians are getting creative. To give an idea of just how cold Canada is, (if the Mars analogy was hard to understand) several Canadians have posted videos of boiling water instantly turning into snow when exposed to the chilly air outside, reports the NDTV.

One such video sent to us shows a man flinging a cup of boiling water in the air and it instantly freezing into powdery snow. The slow-motion video was filmed in Edmonton, one of Canada’s coldest cities right now, on December 30 when temperatures dropped below -30 degree Celsius.