Glacial air will linger across New York and New England Saturday after record-breaking cold and wind froze the region overnight.
(Bloomberg) — Glacial air will linger across New York and New England Saturday after record-breaking cold and wind froze the region overnight.
The low in Boston hit -10F (-6C) early Saturday setting a record for the date, after dropping to -8 before midnight, a new low for Feb. 3, the National Weather Service said. High winds made it feel closer to -35 in the Massachusetts capital. New York’s Central Park wasn’t as cold with a low of 11 Friday night, but early Saturday all of the region’s airports set records for the date, said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster with the US Weather Prediction Center.
“This is the worst day, it should get better,” Oravec said. “Temperatures are going to rebound reaching into the 40s Sunday.”
Atop Mount Washington, New Hampshire’s highest peak at 6,288 feet (1,917 meters), the temperature fell to -47 degrees, an all-time low for the site, where the weather is among the world’s most severe, said Alexis George, a meteorologist on the mountain. Winds up to 127 miles (204 kilometers) per hour, equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane, whipped the weather station overnight, which made outside temperatures feel closer to -100 degrees or colder.
“The coldest of air will peak over the area early this morning,” she wrote in her forecast. “Strong winds and harsh cold temperatures will continue to produce dangerously low wind chill values.”
Despite the wind and cold, there were relatively few power outages across the region. New York was hardest hit with 11,685 customers left in the dark. In Texas, where an unrelated ice storm hit earlier this week killing at least 10, more than 129,000 households are still without power, according to PowerOutage.us.
While the Northeast froze, Miami set a record high for the date of 88F on Friday, Oravec said. As the low pressure system that brought the cold exits into the Atlantic, some of that warm air will be drawn northward in its wake.
By Sunday the high in Boston should reach 49 degrees and 46 in Central Park, the weather service said.
“After that it is mild weather, especially east of the Rocky Mountains where temperatures will be above average for the rest of the week,” Oravec said.
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