New England braces for ‘generational’ cold blast

Julia Shapero
·1 min read
3

New England is bracing for “generational” cold weather over the weekend as an intense Arctic front is expected to bring “bitter wind chills” to the region through Sunday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

“This is an epic, generational Arctic outbreak,” a branch of the NWS in Caribou, Maine, said, according to CNN. “The air mass descending on the area Friday into Friday night is the coldest air currently in the Northern Hemisphere.”

The cold blast is expected to produce wind chills of minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit and colder, as well as temperatures 15 to 35 degrees below average in the upper Midwest and Northeast, according to NWS’s Weather Prediction Center.

NWS Caribou warned on Twitter that between minus 50 and minus 60 degrees can cause frostbite to bare skin in just two to five minutes.

The cold front in the Northeast follows a severe ice storm in the South earlier this week. At least eight deaths in Oklahoma and Texas have been linked to the storm, and more than 240,000 customers remained without power in Texas on Friday morning.

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