Mount Washington’s astonishing AccuWeather RealFeel Temperature in record territory
Mount Washington is famous for its extreme weather conditions, but the latest Arctic outbreak has set a new precedent for the "Home of the World's Worst Weather." Meanwhile, Boston broke two record lows in the span of a few hours amid the cold blast.
Temperatures reached what could be a record low for North America on Mount Washington, with AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperature marked as over 100 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
The polar vortex paid a visit to New England and sent temperatures to record-shattering levels Friday into Saturday. One remote location faced weather conditions so extreme that it looked and felt otherworldly, with an AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperature dipping to record low levels and rivaling conditions on Mars. Meanwhile, a big city close to the coast set two record lows in the span of a few hours Friday night.
Boston dipped to 10 degrees below zero Fahrenheit on Saturday morning with an AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperature of 45 degrees below zero at one point. The city recorded two record lows during Friday night, one for Feb. 3 and another for Feb. 4. Prior to midnight, local time, the mercury dipped to 8 degrees below zero, smashing the prior record for Feb. 3 of 5 degrees below zero from 1881. A few hours later during the early morning hours of Feb. 4, as the temperature dipped further to 10 degrees below zero, this broke that date's record low of 2 degrees below zero from 1886.
This is the coldest air the city has experienced since the thermometer dipped to 12 degrees below zero on Jan. 15, 1957 -- an impressive feat given that no snow was on the ground to chill the air even further with this latest Arctic blast.
Despite the impressive nature of these long-standing records being broken in Boston, the extreme nature of the Arctic blast was unparalleled at the summit of Mount Washington, the tallest mountain in the northeastern United States with an elevation of 6,288 feet.
The AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperature plummeted to 114 degrees below zero at 4 a.m. EST Saturday as winds gusted close to 100 mph. The actual temperature at the time of 47 degrees below zero tied with a 1934 record for the lowest temperature ever recorded at the station.
AccuWeather Founder and CEO Dr. Joel N. Myers states that the AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperature at Mount Washington was the lowest on record for the United States and likely the lowest ever recorded in North America.
A view from the top of the observatory tower at Mount Washington State Park, where the wind chill dropped to 105 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (-79 Celsius) is seen in a still image from a live camera in New Hampshire, U.S. February 4, 2023. Mount Washington Observatory/mountwashington.org/Handout via REUTERS
Compared to wind chill which only describes the cooling effect of wind and temperature, the AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperature also takes into account humidity, precipitation, cloud cover and visibility to give a better sense of what it actually feels like outside. In addition to the AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperature record, Mount Washington now holds the record for the lowest wind chill ever recorded in the United State at 109 degrees below zero.
AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperatures at this level are rarely observed on Earth. For comparison, the weather instrument on the Mars Curiosity rover regularly observes low temperatures around 100 degrees below zero.
Video footage captured at the summit showed the extreme nature of the weather conditions at Mount Washington as wind-driven snow obscured visibility. The summit appeared eerily dark despite it being the middle of the afternoon on Friday.
The wind speeds -- while intense -- were a far cry from the all-time wind record set on the mountain on April 10, 1934. On that date, a 231-mph wind gust was clocked, the highest wind speed ever observed by an anemometer, an instrument designed to measure wind speeds. So far the highest wind gust reported with this event at Mount Washington was 127 mph.
To put this extreme weather into context, AccuWeather Meteorologist Alex DaSilva explained that the mountaintop received wind gusts of Category 3 hurricane strength along with temperatures 47 degrees below zero in the same 24 hours. It's no wonder why Mount Washington calls itself the "Home of the World's Worst Weather."
A handful of people briefly experienced the extraordinarily cold conditions at the summit.
The observatory is continuously staffed by two alternating crews who live at the summit to maintain the weather station, perform weather and climate research and conduct educational programs. Maintaining the station requires people to periodically venture outside to inspect the instruments and clear any ice that could interfere with the collection of weather data.
"On some of my observations, there have been tiny little gaps in my mittens and the spot that was uncovered to the wind felt like a bee stinging my arm continuously," Mount Washington Observatory meteorologist Francis Tarasiewicz told WMUR, stating that frostbite can set in less than a minute into being in the conditions.
Temperatures across New England were below zero as the sun rose on Saturday morning, Feb. 4, 2022. (AccuWeather)
The heart of the cold weather plunged across the Northeast during Friday and Friday night with subzero temperatures recorded across a widespread area by Saturday morning.
Throughout the Northeast, several cities also fell to more than 30 degrees below zero between Friday night and Saturday morning, such as Gray Knob, New Hampshire (39 degrees below zero), Mount Mansfield, Vermont (35 degrees below zero) and High Market, New York (35 degrees below zero). Two populated cities also went well below zero, those being Portland, Maine (15 degrees below zero) and Binghamton, New York (13 degrees below zero).
The extreme weather will not be long-lasting across the Northeast, as a milder weather pattern is forecast for the first full week of February. At the summit of Mount Washington, high temperatures are forecast to settle in the 20s with low temperatures in the teens, temperatures 10 to 15 degrees above normal by February standards.
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