Brutal cold seizes northeast US, shattering record lows

• Cold temperatures and high winds battered the northeastern United States.
• The wind feels on the skin – minus 108 degrees Fahrenheit (-78° Celsius) overnight.
• The air temperature at the summit hit minus 47 degrees Fahrenheit.

On Saturday, a hazardous combination of record-breaking cold temperatures and high winds battered the northeastern United States, triggering life-threatening circumstances and the death of an infant in Massachusetts.

Mount Washington in New Hampshire recorded a wind chill – a measure of how the combined effect of air and wind feels on the skin – of minus 108 degrees Fahrenheit (-78° Celsius) overnight, which appeared to be the lowest ever recorded in the United States. According to the Mount Washington Observatory, the air temperature at the summit hit minus 47 degrees Fahrenheit (-44 degrees Celsius), with winds gusting at 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hour).

The Hampden district attorney said in a statement that severe winds blew a tree into a car in Southwick, Massachusetts, smashing it and killing an infant passenger. The driver was seriously injured and was taken to the hospital.

The low temperature in Boston, where officials shuttered the public school system on Friday due to the coming freeze, reached minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-23 degrees Celsius), smashing the day’s record established more than a century ago, according to the NWS. The temperature in Providence, Rhode Island, plummeted to minus 9 degrees Fahrenheit (-23 degrees Celsius), significantly below the previous all-time low of minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit (-19 degrees Celsius) established in 1918.

The arctic blast from eastern Canada delivered record lows to Albany, New York, Augusta, Maine, Rochester, New York, and Worcester, Massachusetts, among other cities, according to the NWS.

Frostquakes

The NWS office in Caribou, Maine, reported “frostquakes,” which feel like earthquakes but are produced by soil cracking unexpectedly in the cold, as well as trees splitting apart, most likely owing to sap freezing inside the trunks.

Several communities took emergency measures to assist citizens, such as creating warming centers and performing outreach to ensure homeless persons were kept warm in the bitter cold.

According to Barbara Trevisan, a spokeswoman for Pine Street Inn, the largest provider of homeless services in New England, the number of vans canvassing the city’s streets in Boston increased on Friday and Saturday.

“They started going out early this week to warn people that the weather was going to be very extreme,” she said. “The goal last night was just to keep people alive and safe.”

Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts directed that South Station, the city’s principal rail terminus, remain open overnight to serve as an emergency shelter. Trevisan estimates that 50 to 60 homeless persons stayed in the station overnight.

Because of the heat, many ski areas have reduced their operations. Jay Peak, a ski mountain in northern Vermont near the Canadian border, shut down completely on Friday and Saturday, citing safety concerns for employees and skiers.

The cold weather was predicted to pass quickly, with temperatures set to rise dramatically on Sunday. According to the NWS, the high temperature in Boston on Sunday will be around 47 degrees F (8.3 degrees C).

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