Arctic front seizes northeast US, temperatures risk freezing

A powerful arctic front slammed into the northeastern US on Friday, bringing temperatures to dangerously low levels across the region, including New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, where the wind chill dropped to minus 105 degrees Fahrenheit (-79 Celsius), they said. the meteorologists.

Wind chill advisories were issued for most of New York state and all six New England states: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, a region that is home to about 16 million people.

Schools in Boston and Worcester, Massachusetts, New England’s two largest cities, were among those closed Friday over concerns about the risk of hypothermia and frostbite for children walking to school or waiting for the bus.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu declared a state of emergency through Sunday and opened warming centers to help the city’s more than 650,000 residents cope with what the NWS warned was shaping up to be a “unique” cold front. in a generation.”

Biting cold forced a rare closure of a floating museum featuring a daily re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when a band of settlers dressed as Native Americans dumped crates of tea taxed by the king into Boston Harbor in protest.

“It’s too cold for that, we’re closed,” a museum receptionist said Friday.

Early Friday, arctic storm surge coming into the US from eastern Canada was centered on the US plains, weather service meteorologist Bob Oravec said. Kabetogama, Minnesota, near the Ontario border, was the coldest place in the US at 1 pm, with a temperature of minus 39 F (-39.5 C).

Stormy and subzero conditions spread eastward throughout the day, sending wind chill factors, which measure the combined effect of wind and cold on the body, dipping into the minus 40s across much of Maine, said the NWS Meteorologist Brian Hurley.

At Mount Washington State Park, atop the highest peak in the Northeast, temperatures dipped to minus 45 F (-46 C) Friday night, with sustained winds of 90 mph bringing the wind chill to 105 below zero F (-76 C), according to Hurley.

By comparison, air temperatures at Eureka, Canada’s northernmost Arctic weather station, hovered around -41 F (-41 C) on Friday morning.

Boston was 8 degrees F (-13 C) on Friday night, while in Worcester, Massachusetts, 40 miles (64 km) to the west, the mercury hit 3 F (-16 C), and it is expected that temperatures drop further, Hurley said.

Record cold weather was expected in both cities on Saturday. Forecasts called for a low of -6 F in Boston, surpassing the 1886 record of -2 . Worcester was heading for a low of -11 on Saturday, which would break his previous record of 1934 of -4.

“Before the Real Cold Comes”

Despite the bitter cold, Nhon Ma, a Belgium native, was out Friday with his Zinneken food truck near Boston University selling Belgian waffles made from homemade batter and heating up with three or four waffle irons going at once.

“Those generate heat, but of course it’s cold, it’s going to be cold, but we’re here,” Ma said.

In frigid Biddeford, Maine, about 95 miles (150 km) north of Boston, Katie Pinard, a coffee shop and bookstore owner, said business was good because customers were coming in from the cold, with some choosing to work from home. store.

“Yeah, Maine people are pretty resilient, but call me tomorrow and we’ll see if we’re busy or not,” he said, looking forward to Saturday morning, when temperatures were expected to drop to -18 F (-28 C). “I think people go out there and do what they have to do before the real cold hits.”

As the Northeast sheltered, Texas and parts of the South were beginning to heat up after a deadly winter ice storm brought days of freezing rain, sleet and ice, causing massive power outages and dangerously icy roads.

But the weather was warming up, with temperatures in Austin, Texas expected to hit 52 F (11 C) on Friday and 71 F (22 C) on Monday, forecasts say.

Meanwhile, a Pacific storm was expected to bring another round of heavy snow to California’s Sierra Nevada mountains on Saturday night. Periods of moderate rain were forecast in the lower elevations of central and northern California and the Pacific Northwest through the weekend.

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