Hot or cold
Hot or Cold: US States
Three US states are hidden in three Census regions. Type any state and follow the temperature, from freezing to burning, to find all three before the 3:00 run out.
- Found
- 0/3
- Guesses
- 0
- Time
- Time left: 3:00
Three states are hidden, one in each column. Type any state: it drops into its column with a temperature for how close it is to the hidden one there, from freezing to burning. Name a hidden state to reveal it, and find all three before the 3:00 run out.
- Freezing
- Cold
- Cool
- Warm
- Hot
- Burning
Finding your next challenge…
How it works, distances and sources
Every round hides three places, one in each of three columns picked at random. Type any place: it goes into its column with a temperature for how close it is to the hidden one there, from freezing to burning, and naming the hidden one reveals it. While you play you see only temperatures; the distance of every guess, in km, is shown when the round is over. A challenge link replays the same three hidden places.
Distances between states are great-circle distances between their centroids (US Census Bureau shapes). Burning is under 200 km, hot under 400 km, warm under 700 km, cool under 1,100 km, cold under 1,800 km, and anything farther is freezing; states that share a land border are always at least hot. The columns are the four US Census Bureau regions.
Two of the hidden states are well known and one, in a random column, is one of the smaller, less-mentioned states. Alaska and Hawaii are never hidden: every other state is freezing to both, so the temperatures could not tell them apart.
US Census Bureau: Census Regions and Divisions of the United States