The wind chill on New Hampshire’s Mount Washington was a reported 108 degrees below zero on Friday night into Saturday. The previous coldest wind chill in the United States was reported to have been 105 degrees below zero in Alaska, CNN reported.
MountWashington.org posted information that indicated that the wind chill was colder than 108 degrees below zero on Friday night into Saturday. The wind blew at the top of the mountain at more than 90 miles an hour overnight, the observatory said.
“I want to emphasize the danger of this cold,” said Alexis George, a meteorologist and weather observer at Mount Washington. “In these brutally cold conditions, the risk of hypothermia and frostbite will be exponential. These frigid cold conditions will quickly rob you of body heat, with the possibility that frostbite could develop on exposed skin in under a minute.”
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“Even small mistakes can prove deadly, with a simple slip or fogged goggles leading to a potentially life-threatening situation,” George continued. “In this type of weather, rescue services will have a difficult time responding to any emergency effectively.”
The coldest summit temperature on record for Feb. 3 is 32 degrees below zero, and the record for Feb. 4 is 35 degrees below zero, both set in 1963, forecasters said. The record low for February is 46 degrees below zero, set in 1943, and the record low for the observatory’s station was 47 degrees below zero in 1934, officials said.
New Hampshire’s record low is 50 degrees below zero, measured by the US Army Signal Corps at the summit of the mountain in 1885.
“This exceptionally cold airmass will have the potential to break several minimum temperature records,” she wrote, adding that “a wind chill warning will remain in effect through noon Sunday.”
Watch a live webcam from the top of Mount Washington:
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Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.