The -78°C felt were reached on the summits, -51°C in some villages, with gusts approaching 200 km/h. The images taken at Mount Washington, a mountain located in the state of New Hampshire, are particularly spectacular.
A cold snap from the Arctic has caused a dizzying drop in temperatures in northeastern Canada and the United States in recent days, with records reached in some places.
“It’s an epic arctic (cold) snap”, never seen on the scale of a “generation”, in particular “something that northern and eastern Maine have not experienced since 1982 and 1988,” the National Weather Service (NWS) noted in a bulletin on Friday.
The first images that have reached us are impressive. In particular, those taken at the top of Mount Washington, a mountain located at an altitude of nearly 2000m in the state of New Hampshire, on the night of Friday to Saturday.
-42°C were reached, with gusts approaching 200 km / h, bringing a feeling of -80°C, “a new record for the United States”, note weather journalist Guillaume Séchet on Twitter.
In Montreal, it was -29°C in the early morning at the international airport, and -41°C taking into account the wind chill, according to the weather services. Local Maine weather services meanwhile reported a felt temperature of -51°C in the small town of Frenchville, near the border with Canada. The mercury fell to -16°C in Central Park.
The polar cold caused record electricity consumption in Quebec. Consumption peaked late Friday afternoon. The electric company Hydro Quebec has invited its customers to reduce the heating by one or two degrees and to use less hot water. In Boston, schools were closed on Friday as a precaution.
“Polar Vortex”
This extreme cold is caused by a meteorological phenomenon called “polar vortex”. It is an upper low considered to be tenacious, which forms near one pole of the planet and then moves.
According Meteo Francethe temperature variation within the polar vortex “is cyclical” according to the seasons and the minimums are logically lower there during the winter period.
Rain, snow, storms, polar cold and humid heat: the northeastern United States is subject throughout the year to extreme weather phenomena which are accompanied by loss of human life and material damage.
Most recently, during the 2022 Christmas weekend, a blizzard and snowstorm hit the city of Buffalo in upstate New York, killing dozens.
In order to protect the population, the local authorities advise to limit their movements in order to avoid hypothermia, which at these temperatures can occur quickly. The worst of the cold in the United States hit overnight from Friday to Saturday, especially in Boston and New York. Temperatures should then rise again on Sunday.
