A couple skates during a snowstorm on an outdoor rink at city hall in Toronto, Canada, yesterday.
Concord, New Hampshire: Low temperatures and high winds have put the Northeastern US in a deep freeze.
Dangerous wind chills of 20 to 30 below in parts of the region made for some crippling conditions yesterday.
“You are talking about 30 degrees below normal highs. That is pretty darn cold,” said National Weather Service meteorologist James Brown in Maine. “This is pretty much a piece of Arctic air that came off the North Pole and came into New England.”
Forecasters said a storm will follow the frigid weather, bringing chances for snow, sleet and freezing rain across much of the country.
Some schools closed and many others delayed opening yesterday to avoid a bone-chilling wait at the bus stop.
“We’re not strangers to these sorts of bitter temperatures on Mount Washington’s summit,” senior weather observer Mike Carmon said in the weather observatory’s blog at highest peak in the Northeast. “However, over the last few winters, it’s generally late January or February before we experience this sort of polar air outbreak.”
The wind chill was down to 85-below at the summit yesterday.
In upstate New York, along the Lake Ontario shore, wind gusts approached 70 mph and the National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning in the region effective yesterday.
Lake-effect snow was accompanied by winds of up to 50 mph, causing whiteout conditions in some places.
