Frozen Newfound Lake in Alexandria, New Hampshire, on March 8, 2023. Photo by Todd B. Bates/NH EnviroGuy blogger

Record Warmth in Much of New England (and Some Record Cold) in January-February 2023

6 min readMar 9, 2023

Record warmth, record cold and record wind chills.

New England endured some extreme weather and climate conditions last month and in January.

Story: A Super Warm January 2023 in New England and the Northeast

Here are some highlights in New England and elsewhere, courtesy of the National Centers for Environmental Information, the Storm Prediction Center at the National Weather Service and the weather service office in Mount Holly, New Jersey:

Story: Record Warmth, Record Cold, Now Record Warmth in New England and the Northeast

— Massachusetts had its warmest winter (December through February) on record. Connecticut had its second warmest winter.

— New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut had their warmest January-February period on record. Maine and Vermont had their second warmest.

Northern and Eastern Maine Winter Climate Narrative for the 2022–23 Winter (December through February) by the National Weather Service office in Caribou Maine.

— On Feb. 3–4, the wind chill at 6,288-foot Mount Washington in New Hampshire dropped to 108 degrees Fahrenheit below zero — the coldest wind chill on record in the U.S — and the temperature hit 47 below. These extremes stemmed from the polar vortex, along with powerful winds, “resulting in dangerously low temperatures, power outages and canceled flights” in parts of the Northeast.

Story: Extreme Snowfall in New England Led by Mount Washington in N.H.

—The mercury dropped to a record low for Feb. 4 at Boston Logan International Airport in Massachusetts: 10 degrees below zero. The previous record (2 below) was set 137 years ago. Also on Feb. 4, Portland in Maine experienced its all-time record low wind chill: 45 degrees below zero.

— A total of 178 tornadoes were reported in the U.S. in January and February. That’s the fourth highest number on record. One tornado, rated an EF-2 with estimated peak winds of 110 mph to 115 mph, affected parts of Mercer County in New Jersey on Feb. 21. That’s fairly close to where I lived in South Brunswick before moving to New Hampshire nearly two years ago.

More images, including climate outlooks for March and some of my recent Newfound Lake and other photos in New Hampshire (plus a photo of me in the late 1960s outside our home in Brighton, New York, with lots of snow on the ground):

Source: National Weather Service Albany NY office