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It could be a landscape straight from the icy wastelands north of the wall in the hit television fantasy series Game of Thrones.

But the image below is actually from the peak of a mountain that researchers based there describe as having the 'world's worst weather'.

It captures the build-up of rime ice that has been sculpted by the record-breaking winds on the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire.

Hard rime covering the summit of Mount Washington were sculpted by some of the strongest winds on Earth

Rime builds up when supercooled water droplets blown around by the wind freeze solid when they hit the bare rock.

The effect can produce beautiful ice sculptures of spikes pointing in the direction of the wind.

It was -11°C (11°F) according to the weather station that sits on top of the summit when this photograph was taken in March in winds of 86 mph.

In the days before the photograph was taken the temperature without windchill dropped to -27°C (-17°F) and the summit was buffetted by winds of more than 112mph.

However, Mount Washington has recorded some of the world's fastest wind speeds, with observatory on the mountain recording winds of 231 mph in 1934 - faster than anything recorded in a category five hurricane. 

It has only been surpassed by gusts of 253mph in 1996 on Barrow Island, Australia, during Tropical Cyclone Olivia.

Mount Washington, which is 6,288 ft (1,917 m), has also recorded temperatures so cold that it is regularly the second coldest place on Earth beind the South Pole.

In February it recorded a temperature of -37°C (-35°F) and gusts of 141 mph.

Mike Dorfman, summit weather observer at the Mount Washington Observatory, said: 'In these conditions, every single square inch of skin must be covered and even then we only have a few minutes to take our observation.

'This extreme weather is what makes life and work on the summit such an incredible experience.

'We watched water freeze in less than 5 seconds when poured on the ground outside.

'With this combination of low temperatures and high wind speeds, one realizes how isolated we really are on our island at 6,288 feet.'

The Mount Washington Observatory is manned around the clock by a team of observers who take regular hourly weather measurements all year long.

It seems life there is harder than anything Jon Snow might encounter North of the Wall.

Weather on  Mount Washington could rival any from the frozen world depicted in Game of Thrones (above)

The summit of Mount Washington, marked by the sign above, is notorious for fast changing weather conditions

The peak is a popular spot for photographers hoping to capture some of the unusual shapes created by the ice