“17 April 2001?” I ask Krystyna Glowacki, 24, over Zoom.
“That was a Tuesday,” she shoots back after less than half a beat. It was.
Hottest temperature ever recorded in Oman?
I’ve barely finished the question before she verbalises her confident response: 50.8C. Correct. Every hair on my arm stands up.
And Mongolia? I’m throwing in far-flung places to really test this seemingly superhuman brain. 44C, right again.
Coldest in Germany? “Minus 45.9 degrees, in a sinkhole in Bavaria on December 24, 2001.” I sit there blinking. At this point I actually laugh. Her memory is so good, it’s preposterous.
Glowacki, from the New South Wales central coast, can name the hottest and coldest temperature recorded in every country in the world, along with the location and date that record was set. She can also name the longitude and latitude of every major city in the world. Despite lockdown, she transports me across oceans, accurately naming coordinates from San Francisco to Berlin in…