Pawan Kumar
Mount Washington’s wind chill reaches -108
As the Northeast is being pummelling by dangerously cold air, the wind chill at Mount Washington’s summit in New Hampshire fell to minus-108 degrees on Friday. According to meteorologists and climate scientists, this is likely the lowest temperature ever recorded in American history.
Videos taken by the charity Mount Washington’s Observatory illustrate how the mountain with the tallest peak in the Northeast appeared to be on another planet due to the extreme cold and strong winds of more than 100 mph from the Arctic air blast that walloped the summit Friday afternoon. According to NASA, the spooky picture atop Mount Washington last week was actually a little colder than usual on Mars.
At Mount Washington, a 6,228-foot peak famed for its unpredictable weather, the wind chill was colder than the previous record of minus-102.7 degrees set in 2004. On Friday night, the observatory had predicted sustained winds of more than 100 mph with gusts of around 128 mph.
The daily record temperature from 1963 was broken on Friday afternoon, according to a tweet from the Mount Washington Observatory, and temperatures were “likely to plummet considerably lower overnight.” According to the National Weather Service, they exactly accomplished that, falling to minus-108. (The wind chill was estimated by the Mount Washington Observatory to be negative 109 degrees.)
The EPA reported Friday night that “the 96 mph winds (gusts to 127 mph) are causing a wind chill of -108 F.”
An inquiry for information made early on Saturday morning went unanswered by a Mount Washington Observatory spokeswoman.
Francis Tarasiewicz, a meteorologist at Mount Washington Observatory, said the record wind chill had come at the end of “an incredible day, an awe-inspiring day, and actually a little frightening moment.” At the observatory, a door hinge was broken by the strong wind, which Tarasiewicz described as “a topsy-turvy whiplash,” due to the force the blasting air applied to it.
The weatherman warned that such strong wind chills would cause frostbite on exposed flesh in less than a minute, and he begged hikers to stay off the trails on Saturday.
The region that was exposed to the wind felt like a bee buzzing his arm continuously on some of Tarasiewicz’s observations, he said. “On some of my observations, there have been tiny little gaps in my gloves,” Tarasiewicz added.
According to the National Weather Service, Mount Washington experienced a Friday night low of minus-46 degrees.
The National Weather Service posted on Twitter, “Right now Mount Washington is living up to the reputation of having the worst weather in the world.”
Nearly 50 million Americans in 15 states are under wind chill advisories through Saturday due to the dangerously cold air sweeping the Northeast and setting records at Mount Washington. According to the Weather Service, New England cities like Boston, Providence, and Bridgeport, Conn., recorded record low daily temperatures. Parts of Maine are suffering their most extreme wind chills in at least a generation.
Five maps depict the Northeast’s invasion by the harsh, historic cold.
The last time the Mount Washington wind chill might have reached at least minus-108 was 138 years ago, according to climate scientist Brian Brettschneider of Alaska. Brettschneider calculated that Mount Washington would have had a minus-108 wind chill on January 22, 1885 using historical climatic forms that displayed the temperature and 24-hour average wind speed.
The country’s meteorologists and weather specialists were astounded by the record wind chill.
The most intense weather on Earth today was observed in Mount Washington, New Hampshire, according to Colin McCarthy, a storm observer based in California.
Meteorologist Lee Goldberg described the Mount Washington observations as “mind-blowing.”
Meteorologist Brandon Orr shouted, “Woah!”
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Others on social media struggled to understand the unusual weather Mount Washington was experiencing.
One observer tweeted, “[The] summit of Mount Washington looks like another planet.”
Mount Washington was propelled into the stratosphere Friday night as a result of a polar vortex lobe that slammed against the south, as noted by meteorological specialists. The border separating the troposphere and the stratosphere, known as the tropopause, will lower in altitude as the atmosphere becomes more compressed as it cools.
