People huddle together as they protect themselves from cold winds as the region experiences record low temperatures on February 03, 2023 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago Getty Images
A powerful Arctic blast will bring “dangerous wind chill temperatures” to the Northeast through Saturday afternoon along with blizzard conditions in northern Maine, forecasters have warned.
“Temperatures will be 10 to 30 degrees below average across the northeast to the mid-Atlantic coast,” the National Weather Service said in a bulletin early Saturday.
Cold weather warnings and advisories are in place for New York State and New England, he said.
The weather service added that high winds could cause power outages and damage to property north of the Rocky Mountains and the Highlands.
It came after the temperature reached a perilously low level in the area there. At Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire, where the temperature is minus 101 degrees Fahrenheit recorded.
Elsewhere, schools in Boston and Worcester, Massachusetts, two of New England’s largest cities, were among those closed Friday amid concerns about the risk of hypothermia and frostbite for children walking to school or waiting for buses.
With the weather service forecasting wind chills of minus 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit for northern Massachusetts on Saturday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu declared a state of emergency until Sunday and opened a warming center to help the city’s 650,000-plus residents.
In Southwick, Massachusetts, outside of Springfield, the storm was blamed for the death of a baby who died when winds knocked over a tree that fell and crashed into the baby’s vehicle. serious injury. The gender and age of the baby were not immediately available.
In New York, a “Code Blue” alert signaling sub-freezing temperatures and the opening of emergency shelters was activated.
Single-digit temperatures and wind chills of 10 to 15 below zero are forecast for the city and suburbs Saturday morning, New York’s National Weather Service said.
More than 11,000 properties in New York state were without power early Saturday and more than 5,000 in Maine, according to the website poweroutage.us.
While the Northeast hunkered down, Texas and parts of the South were starting to warm up after a deadly winter ice storm that brought days of freezing rain, sleet and ice, causing massive power outages and dangerous icy roads.
However, “snow will move into parts of California overnight Saturday,” the weather service said, adding that another round of heavy snow will hit the Sierra Nevada mountains overnight through Sunday.