It’s deadly outdoors
So cold skating on Frog Pond canceled
Bundle up tight, because the arctic air that’s so cold it closed ice skating on the Common isn’t done blasting New England.
The National Weather Service advisory for frigid temperatures — which descended on Greater Boston and New England starting in the early morning hours of Friday — continues through at least the first half of Saturday. The icy onslaught should let up on Sunday and allow the region to get back to its significantly warmer than average temperatures.
“Limit time outside, wear extra layers,” said NWS meteorologist Kyle Pederson, as the temperature outside his Norton office barely cracked two digits at 11 degrees around 5 p.m. Friday. “Frostbite could occur in under 10 minutes so be careful out there.”
Up at Logan Airport in Eastie, the temperature gauge lay south of zero at -3 degrees. That’s so dangerously cold that the city closed ice skating on Frog Pond in Boston Common, according to a notice on the city website.
Temperatures are expected to continue to dive to the low -30s in Boston, and even colder further north, with an expected -35 degrees at the New Hampshire border. West toward Worcester and up in the Berkshires, wind-chill temperatures could dip as low as -45 degrees, Pederson said.
The saving grace, he said, is that the forecast is dry, meaning that the roads should be OK.
But a warning to ships at sea: a freezing spray warning continues as long as the arctic blast remains in effect.
The blast is “fairly shortlived,” Pederson said, with temperatures set to rebound into the 40s on Sunday with a shot at the 50s beginning on Wednesday.
This period of extreme cold and dryness is at odds with what has been an historically warm and wet winter southern New England.
“What it ended up being is a warmer and wetter January across all of southern New England with lowerthan-average snowfall,” said Bill Leatham, another NWS meteorologist.
Last month, he said, was the fifth-warmest January in Boston station history, which dates back to 1872. The month averaged 37.8 degrees, less than two-degrees colder than the warmest on record set in 1913 and roughly 8 degrees warmer than the 30-year average of 29.9 degrees.
It was also wetter than average, but that came in rain. Snowfall totals for the month were less than half the norm, at 6.9 inches compared to the 30-year average of 14.3 inches.
In Worcester, the month was the warmest in that station’s history, which dates back to 1892. The month averaged 34.7 degrees, more than 10 degrees warmer than the 24.1 degree 30-year average.
To the south, both Providence and Hartford had their third warmest Januarys on record, he said, with both tying past years. Providence, averaging 37.6 degrees, tied January 1937; and Hartford’s 36.6 degree month average tied that of January 1933.