If you live anywhere from the Ohio Valley to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, finding a date for Valentine's Day may be a matter of actual physical survival this year, as a brutally cold air mass descends on the region.
Temperatures on Saturday night could plunge near or below record lows from Washington, D.C., to New York City, Boston, Albany and interior portions of northern New England.
In Boston, the National Weather Service (NWS) issued a statement on Thursday warning of "potentially life-threatening cold" for the weekend, with below zero temperatures on Sunday, morning including in Providence, Hartford and Worcester.
With wind chills in some areas of Massachusetts forecast to hit the minus-30s Fahrenheit, the NWS warned that frostbite could occur on exposed skin in 10 minutes or less.
Making matters worse will be winds that will howl out of the northwest at 40 miles per hour or higher, causing wind chills to plunge into the minus-20s Fahrenheit by Sunday morning in New York City.
Upstate New York will be the epicenter of this cold snap. Temperatures here may not top zero degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday, and wind chills could hit the minus-40s Fahrenheit, according to the Weather Service.
The cold is coming due to a piece of the tropospheric polar vortex that has broken free from the Arctic, and is swirling its way south across Greenland and northeast Canada.
Tweet may have been deleted
For more than 100 million people, this will be a serious, albeit short-lived, run in with pure Arctic air. In many ways, the quick hit by this cold air mass is a good example of how the weather is playing out this winter.
There has been a constant battle between an El Niño-influenced weather pattern, featuring milder-than-average conditions across much of the country, and Arctic-influenced air masses that have brought snow to the Midwest and eastern seaboard.
So far this winter, the warmth has greatly outweighed the cold, which is in keeping with global warming-related trends.
Since Jan. 1, 3019 warm temperature records have been set or tied in the U.S., while just 685 cold temperature records were set or tied during the same period, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
However, this cold snap will be by far the coldest such outbreak of the season.
For example, computer models continue to show one of the top five coldest air masses on record for Albany, New York.
While this cold air outbreak is, in Connecticut NBC TV meteorologist Ryan Hanrahan's words, "exceptionally impressive," it may be difficult to set a slew of record lows.
First, the winds may remain strong, which helps keep temperatures up by preventing the most efficient radiational cooling to take place. (The downside of this is that it will keep wind chills lower.)
Second, there is little snow cover in many areas, including in Washington and New York, and snow cover helps radiate heat out into the atmosphere at night.
New York City has not seen temperatures hit zero degrees or below since the 1980s, according to the NWS. Sunday's record low is in jeopardy, with a forecast low of 1 measly degree Fahrenheit, which would beat the record of 2 degrees set in 1916.
The forecast low on Sunday morning in the city is just 1 measly degree above zero Fahrenheit.
The Arctic cold front ushering in the frigid conditions will slice across the northeast and Mid-Atlantic through early Saturday, with temperatures dropping throughout the day despite the sunshine.
By Saturday night, when most couples will celebrate Valentine's Day this year, temperatures in the New York City area will hit between minus-5 and 3 degrees Fahrenheit above zero, the NWS stated on Thursday.
According to the NWS, temperatures and strong winds on Sunday morning could cause frostbite on exposed skin in under 30 minutes.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
