It sounds a little crazy, but we could have colder wind chills at the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire than at Vostok Station in Antarctica.
Dangerous, and what is likely record-breaking cold, is moving across the northeast with wind chills hitting the negative 20s in both Maine and Vermont early Friday morning.
New forecast numbers are coming in and yikes! Look at how cold Maine will be tonight. Wind Chills in Caribou will drop into the - 30 to - 55 degree range overnight and early Saturday morning pic.twitter.com/eeUCFc7Lqk
— Sam Schreier (@SamASchreier) February 3, 2023
This polar airmass will drop wind chills into the -20 to -50 degree range Friday night and Saturday morning as strong winds mix with arctic air.
One of the coldest places in the world tonight will be the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire.
Wind chills rival Vostok Station Antarctica, which currently holds the record for the coldest measured temperature on Earth!
According to the summit forecast for Mount Washington, record-breaking cold could hit the mountain Friday night through Saturday morning.
Model guidance is suggesting summit temperatures could drop as low as -47 to -50 degrees, which would tie or break the all-time cold record for the summit. As temperatures drop, the winds are forecast to reach 80 to 100 mph Friday afternoon, and 100 to 120 mph Friday night.
This could lead to wind chills dropping to a range of 100 to 110 degrees below zero.
Air temperatures will recover to the -20s Saturday afternoon, and warm above zero Sunday.
Mount Washington is already famous for having the second-strongest wind gust in recorded history! The gust, which happened at 1:21 pm on April 12th, 1934, was clocked at 231 mph.
The current strongest gust of 253 mph happened in Barrow Island, Australia on April 10th, 1996. As Tropical Cyclone Olivia, a category 4 storm, passed over the island, the 253 mph wind gust was recorded on an anemometer owned by an oil and gas company.
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