MOUNT WASHINGTON, N.H. — Northern New England is in the grip of icy temperatures. But if you think it’s cold in the flatlands, try 15 below, and 53-below with the wind, atop New Hampshire’s Mount Washington.
The Mount Washington Observatory reported Sunday it felt like 53.3 degrees below zero with the 54 mph winds gusting on top of the 6,288-foot mountain, New England’s highest.
While dangerously cold, the temperatures didn’t detract from the view, the observatory reported. Under a brilliant sunshine and blue skies, officials said they could see 110 miles in every direction.
Elsewhere in northern New England, the arctic high pressure system dropped temperatures below zero just about everywhere Saturday night, and Sunday night wasn’t expected to get much better, the National Weather Service said. But after all, it’s January in the nation’s far north, which has been spoiled by unseasonably warm temperatures so far this season.
“Given it’s the north, it isn’t as cold as it could be,” said meteorologist Tony Mignone of the weather service’s Caribou bureau in northern Maine, where it was 3 above Sunday afternoon. The single-digit numbers prevailed in much of the region Sunday, but the wind made it feel colder.
The wind was expected to keep the region in the deep freeze through part of Sunday night, but gradually diminish. Then a high sets in Monday that could ratchet temperatures into the 20s in many areas, providing a measure of relief from what people have been used to, Mignone said.
Saturday night in Maine, overnight lows dropped to minus-11 in Frenchville and Greenville, and a bone-numbing 19-below zero in Fryeburg near the New Hampshire border. Portland was minus-1 and Bangor minus-3.
In the Granite State, it hit minus-18 in Berlin, and minus-11 in Lebanon and Whitefield, while Portsmouth lavished in a 2-above reading. And in Vermont, early morning lows Sunday were minus-12 in Morrisville and minus-8 in St. Johnsbury.
The forecast Tuesday into Wednesday calls for snow across much of the region. Forecasters predict light accumulations, and possible rain in some areas.
Now that’s cold
NO, thats Maine weather, the way it used to be…BUT we’re still open for business!!
My Grandfather had a “cottage” on Oquossoc Lake in Rangley. He used to say “When it’s 40 below outside you can come in here, set a fire in the fireplace, and in no time it’s all the way up to zero.”
It is january….
New Hampshire looked gorgeous today… assuming your eyes didn’t freeze shut.
Heck, when I was a kid 15 below zero was the norm this time of year. It sure as heck didn’t buy us a day out of school ;-) I haven’t seen one of the harbors freeze in so many years that I can’t remember the last time it happened with certainty.
Big deal Mount Washington, it was -20 below on my thermometer this morning. And i might say that it was a cool morning none the least. Come back when you have something real to complain about.
The top of Mt. Washington is undeniably cold, BUT some of the back valleys are even colder. I remember 1969 when the thermometer hit 52 below…. that’s temperature not wind chill… in Fabyan New Hampshire (that is a town at the foot of Mount Washington.) My girlfriend’s dog froze solid on her front porch, and the acid in my car battery froze, and burst the casing. Only the fools (like me) and the forest rangers went outside, and they didn’t stay out long. I love that weather…