'Historic Arctic outbreak' crushes records in New England

[Zorro]

Source: Washington Post

Mount Washington in New Hampshire logged the U.S.'s coldest wind chill ever recorded: minus-109

Parts of the Northeast woke up to the coldest morning in decades on Saturday, with temperatures 30 degrees or more below average and wind chills in the extremely dangerous category. Virtually the entirety of New England was included in wind chill warnings, while Mount Washington’s minus-109 degree wind chill set a record for the entire United States.

The National Weather Service office serving the Boston region described the cold as “a historic Arctic outbreak for the modern era,” and warned that “this is about as cold as it will ever get.”

In Boston, the morning low fell to minus-10 degrees at 5:15 a.m., the coldest reading observed in the city since Jan. 15, 1957, when Boston hit minus-12. The episode resembled the brutal Arctic blast on Valentine’s Day 2016, when Logan Airport dropped to minus-9 degrees.

Coupled with winds gusting near 40 mph, Boston witnessed its lowest wind chill ever recorded at minus-39 degrees. Records date back to 1944. Wind chill is an index that attempts to quantity the combined impact of cold and wind on the human body, since strong winds blow away one’s body heat.

Read more: https://wapo.st/3l8ngiL

[BootinUp]

1. Woolly mammoths don't mind too much nt

[FailureToCommunicate]

2. Meh. Knowing it felt like minus 100 degrees on Mt Washington, made our -35 in Boston not...

seem SO bad.

Now, if it was like this day after day, like parts of the upper Mid-West have every winter, it would def seem worse.

[OAITW r.2.0]

3. Cold temps here peaked at -20F with WC of -50f. My BR window - situated in front of my head....

has no lock, so I had a cool breeze the entire night. But the electric blanket kept me nice and warm.

[paleotn]

4. A might chilly on the "rock pile", aka Mount Washington.

-20 actual temp in our little corner of VT this morning. A bit less than our -15 one Jan. morning in 2022.

[Jilly_in_VA]

5. According to my spousal unit

colder than the surface of Saturn. I have no idea how he would know that!

[democrank]

6. Currently a warm -4 below in my little Vermont village

A real warm-up since last night. I’m so grateful the pipes didn’t freeze.

[spike jones]

7. -20 Many years ago, there was a cold storm in the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina.

The temperature was to get twenty below zero. I wanted to experience that temperature, and drove to the pass at the mountain crest near Clingmans Dome. As I was arriving at the Newfound Gap overlook, another car was leaving. The air was frightful, almost painful to breath, but no wind. I spit to see it freeze before hitting the ground. I walked to the fence by where the other car had been parked. There on the top of the stone rail were several small brownish transparent bubbles. They looked odd, and I poked at one with my gloved finger. It broke and fell down, and smelled real bad like crap. I then realized that the bubbles were frozen farts.

[Warpy]

9. My lowest was in the mid 20s below in Indiana

It doesn't feel a whole lot different at -20 than it does at +20, it just feels like that a lot faster. I found out at that temperature, if I spit, it would bounce. I also did the saucepan full of water trick, some of it froze and some of it didn't. Boiling water would have frozen completely as it flashed to steam in the cold air. Yeah, I was a teenager. For science!

[Warpy]

8. Bostom is especially bad because the winds tend to be gale force

when one of these systems roars through. It's why people there talk fast and walk faster, freezing to death between the subway station and wherever you're going is a possibility. I was happy when Thinsulate ski gear finally came out and hit Filene's Basement where I could afford it.

It has bottomed out at -10F here in the high desert, but we didn't have Boston's winds that day. It's not nearly as brutal without that wind.