Arctic air plunges Northeast into dangerously deep freeze
BOSTON — The Arctic air that descended on the Northeast on Saturday brought dangerously cold sub-zero temperatures and wind chills to the region, including a record-setting wind chill of minus 108 degrees on the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire.
Temperatures got so low that authorities in Massachusetts took the unusual step of keeping the South Station transit hub open overnight so homeless people had a safe place to sleep. Several cities in the Northeast set or tied record low temperatures for the date, while the high winds brought a tree branch down on a car in western Massachusetts, killing an infant.
“I can’t remember it being this cold, not since 2015,” said Gin Koo, 36, wrapped up in three shirts and a down jacket as well as a hat and a hood as he walked his Boston terrier, Bee, in Boston on Saturday morning. Even Bee, wrapped in a doggie coat, shivered. “I wouldn’t go out if I didn’t have to.”
Paul Butler, 45, homeless since being evicted in December 2021, took shelter in South Station.
“This is the coldest I ever, ever remember, and I worked the door at a bunch of clubs for 15 years,” said the former Marine.
The Mount Washington Observatory at the peak of the Northeast’s highest mountain, famous for its extreme weather conditions, also recorded an actual temperature of minus 47 — tying an observatory record set in 1934 — and a wind gust of 127 mph.
Across the rest of the region, wind chills — the combined effect of wind and cold air on exposed skin — dropped to as low as minus 45 to minus 50 degrees, the National Weather Service reported.
In Southwick, Massachusetts, on Friday, winds brought a tree branch down on a vehicle driven by a 23-year-old Winsted, Connecticut, woman, the Hampden district attorney’s office said. The driver was taken to the hospital with serious injuries, but the infant died, authorities said.
Boston’s Pine Street Inn, the largest provider of homeless services in New England, ramped up outreach to those on the streets, doubling the number of vehicles that could transport people to shelters and opening their lobby to provide extra space.
“The biggest concern is the people who have compromised judgment,” President and CEO Lyndia Downie said Saturday of people who have a substance-use disorder or mental illness. “On these cold nights, they are not thinking at 100% of their capacity.”
Massachusetts General Hospital treated several people for hypothermia overnight and a couple were admitted for frostbite.
Boston; Providence, Rhode Island; Hartford, Connecticut; Worcester, Massachusetts; Albany, New York; and Glens Falls, New York, set or matched record low temperatures for Feb. 4, according to the National Weather Service. Cold air is expected to move out of much of the region by Sunday, when temperatures could rise to the 40s.