Northeast Cold Fatigue Lasts Through The Weekend With High Winds, Dangerous Wind Chills

Bitter Cold Blasts Northeast

The Northeast has been blasted by another arctic cold front that is producing subzero wind chills and high winds.

Here's what you need to know.

How Cold?

The NWS has also issued extreme cold warnings for parts of the East, from New England to eastern North Carolina into Sunday.

Areas in extreme cold warnings, shown by the darkest blue contour in the map below, include the New York City tri-state, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Hartford. This means it could be cold enough to cause frostbite or hypothermia if you're outside long enough.

Dozens of daily record cold highs will be in jeopardy once again on Sunday, generally from the single digits in the coldest spots to the teens and 20s elsewhere in the Northeast, and 30s in North Carolina.

Expect single-digit lows above or below zero in much of the Northeast from Pennsylvania and New Jersey northward, teens in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, and 20s into North Carolina once again on Monday morning.

Sunday morning could be the coldest morning of the winter so far, from the New York City tri-state into New England, including Boston.

Fortunately, temperatures will begin to moderate as this upcoming week progresses, and we will give more info later in this article.

The winds we mentioned earlier, combined with this cold, will send wind chills plunging below zero in much of the Northeast for yet another day.

In parts of New York state, New England and the Appalachians, wind chills in the minus teens, minus 20s are possible.

Snow, Too

Heavy snowfall fell across parts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The highest snowfall totals have exceeded a foot across parts of northeasern Massachusetts. Boston has saw more than 5 inches of snowfall on Saturday, which will add to the over 7 inch surplus they have seen since December 1.

Some of these snow bands brought snowfall rates over 2 inches per hour, and along with strong winds, lead to sharp reductions in visibility and challenging travel in a few areas.

Any Relief Coming?

The short answer is, "Yes, somewhat."

As noted above and present on the forecast highs graphic above, temperatures will begin to moderate some for the Northeast. And by moderate, we mean that temperatures should rise above freezing in much of the Interstate 95 corridor by Tuesday. Temperatures could even reach the 40s for some of the major cities later this week.

In general, the warm-up in the Northeast will be relatively muted compared to the rest of the Central U.S. during the week. But, temperatures around average the rest of the week is better than the more than 10 degrees below average temperatures we have been seeing for the last few weeks.

(MAPS: 10-Day US Forecast Highs/Lows)

Cold Stretch

It really has been an impressively cold stretch in the East since mid-January.

According to the Southeast Regional Climate Center, dozens of locations in the East have had their top-10 coldest Jan. 15-Feb. 4 three-week periods on record. Detroit and Pittsburgh have each had their third-coldest such period, and coldest since 1963 and 1977, respectively.

It was also Pittsburgh's coldest January in 12 years.

On Groundhog Day, New York City finally broke its nine-day streak of at or below freezing temperatures, its longest streak in over eight years.

Washington's nine-day streak at or below freezing was its sixth-longest, and the longest since 1989.

The persistent cold and multiple winter storms have also left Philadelphia with at least 5 inches of snow cover for over a week straight, its longest such streak since the epic Snowmageddon storms of February 2010.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.