WINDS CUT POWER TO 120,000 IN NORTHEAST

Arctic air pours in from Canada for quick-hit cold shot

More than 120,000 customers lost power in the Northeast on Monday night when strong winds blew through New York state and New England behind an Arctic cold front. Mount Washington in New Hampshire saw gusts of well over 100 mph as frigid air poured across the Canadian border in the quick-hitting cold shot.

Wind advisories and a few high-wind warnings still blanketed most of New England on Tuesday. Wind chill advisories had been hoisted overnight, as well as falling temperatures combined with the blustery breezes.

The short-lived blast should be over by today, however, when afternoon highs should be as much as 20 degrees warmer.

Blustery winds fringed the Mid-Atlantic, too, but gusts in most places remained below 40 mph and did not meet wind-advisory criteria.

In Boston, the cold front came through Monday evening, scouring a saturated atmosphere riddled with mist and drizzle to the east and replacing it with bone-dry air. Monday started with temperatures in the 40s and 100 percent relative humidity, coupled with rain and fog. The dew point, a measure of how much moisture is present in the air, sat at 41 degrees.

By 5 p.m., winds were gusting to near 40 mph at Logan International Airport as the humidity fell. The dew point had made it to minus-3 by midnight, around the same time that winds were gusting between 45 and 50 mph. Boston had made it down to 13 degrees for Tuesday morning’s low, with winds still gusting over 45 mph as recently as 9 a.m.