Historic Arctic Outbreak Chills New England
AN ARCTIC BLAST BRINGS RECORD COLD AND DANGEROUS WIND CHILLS TO BLUE HILL
Saturday, February 4, 2023
An historic Arctic airmass pushed into New England late yesterday accompanied by strong winds. With the brief, but brutal Arctic blast impacting the region this morning, we set two new record low temperatures here at the hill.
With the temperature at midnight reaching -11F, this set a new record minimum for February 3rd. This temperature beat the previous record low for the date of -7F set back in 1955!
The temperature continued to drop overnight, reaching a minimum of -13.9F (-14F) at around 3:45 am this morning. This value obliterated the previous record low for February 4th of -4F set back in 1886 and 1908! This reading was the coldest temperature observed on the hill since -14F was observed on February 14th, 2016, and it was within seven degrees of the coldest temperature ever measured at Blue Hill!
Also, while likely not a record here on the hill (we don’t have dew point records tabulated), the dew point looks to have dropped to as low as -29F at around 4 am this morning. True Arctic air for sure!
The peak wind gust overnight was 56 mph from the WNW at 7:33 pm on Friday evening. Although the wind speed had eased by Saturday morning, the wind chill at the 7 am observation this morning was a brutal -37F! We estimate that the minimum wind chill overnight was between -40F and -45F.
BHO Coldest Minimum Temperatures, deg F (1885-2023):
1) -21 on 9 Feb 1934
2) -19 on 29 Dec 1933
3) -18 on 30 Dec 1933
-18 on 15 Feb 1943
5) -17 on 30 Dec 1917
6) -16 on 17 Feb 1896
-16 on 20 Dec 1942
-16 on 16 Feb 1943
-16 on 15 Jan 1957
10) -15 on 12 Jan 1886
11) -14 on 6 Jan 1896
-14 on 9 Dec 1902
-14 on 12 Feb 1914
-14 on 5 Feb 1918
-14 on 14 Feb 2016
-14 on 4 Feb 2023
Report Prepared By: Matt Douglas / Mike Iacono