Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: A dangerous combination of record-breaking cold temperatures and powerful winds battered the northeastern United States on Saturday, creating life-threatening conditions.
The cold wave already led to the death of a minor in Massachusetts. New Hampshire’s Mount Washington overnight recorded a wind chill — a measure of how the combined effect of wind and air feels to the skin — of minus 108 degrees Fahrenheit or -78°Celsius, which was the lowest ever in the country.
The air temperature, at the peak, reached -47 degrees F or -44 C, with winds gusting near 160 kilometres per hour, as per the Mount Washington Observatory. The high winds rooted out a tree onto a car in Southwick, Massachusetts, said the Hampden district attorney in a statement, crushing the vehicle and killing an infant passenger. The driver was later shifted to a hospital with serious injuries.
Cold weather forces schools’ closure
In Boston, where officials shut the public school system Friday due to the impending freeze, the low temperature hit minus 10 degrees F, shattering the day’s weather record set more than a century ago, the NWS said. The mercury, in Providence, Rhode Island, dropped to -23 C, well below the previous all-time low of -19 C, set in 1918.
Several cities took emergency steps to aid residents, including opening warming centres and ensuring homeless people are sheltered from the cold.
In Boston, the largest provider of homeless services in New England, Pine Street Inn, doubled the number of vehicles canvassing the city’s streets on Friday and Saturday, said a spokeswoman, Barbara Trevisan. The frigid weather was likely to be short-lived, with temperatures prediction to be significantly higher on Sunday.
