Steam fog at Newfound Lake in New Hampshire at 7:22 a.m. on Feb. 4, 2023, when the temperature was about 17 degrees below zero and winds were strong and gusty. Photo by Todd B. Bates/NH EnviroGuy blogger

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

7 min readFeb 10, 2023

Last month was the warmest January on record in New England and where I lived for 40 years — New Jersey, the National Centers for Environmental Information says.

Then an Arctic blast shattered some cold temperature records in the Northeast.

Now more record warmth has hit the region and guess what? The climate outlook calls for more warmth in the next couple of weeks and possibly beyond. With the unusual warmth, snowfall has been below average in many areas.

Source: National Weather Service Boston/Norton office

A Super Warm January 2023 in New England and the Northeast

Source: Weather Prediction Center at the National Weather Service

While January was quite warm, the temperature was about 17 degrees below zero when I got up on Feb. 4 in my current home in central New Hampshire. The wind chill a couple hours earlier was minus 48 in Bristol, one town south of us. Wind chills as low as 60 below zero were reported in other parts of New Hampshire, not including on 6,288-foot Mount Washington, where a minus-108 wind chill value was reported. In western Maine, wind chills as low as minus 58 were reported, according to the National Weather Service Gray/Portland ME office.

On Mount Washington, low temperatures hit minus 46 degrees on Feb. 3 and 47 below on Feb. 4, according to preliminary data from the Mount Washington Observatory. Those readings came close to the Granite State record low of 50 below zero, set at Mount Washington on Jan. 22, 1885. They also broke or tied daily, monthly and all-time records for the station, which began operating in 1932.

Winds gusted to 127 mph there on Feb. 3, with the wind chill dropping to 107 below zero. Feb. 4 featured gusts to 118 mph, with the wind chill reaching 108 below, according to the observatory and observations on a weather service website.

“Good morning! Here is a look at recorded minimum wind chills overnight. If you are wondering where Mt. Washington is, the -108F recorded is so extreme that our software that generates these products refuses to include it!” the National Weather Service Gray/Portland ME office tweeted.

According to the weather service Eastern Region Headquarters, other low temperature records broken or tied on Feb. 4 include:
— Morrisville, Vermont: 19 below zero (previous record was minus 12 in 2011).
— Saint Johnsbury, Vermont: 19 below (previous record was minus 13 in 2011).
— Augusta, Maine: 17 degrees below (previous record was minus 14 in 1971).
— Springfield, Vermont: 16 below (previous record was minus 14 in 2011).
— Worcester, Massachusetts: 13 below (previous record was minus 4 in 1934).
— Boston, Massachusetts: 10 below (previous record was minus 2 in 1886).
— Providence, Rhode Island: 9 below (previous record was minus 2 in 1918).
— Hartford (BDL), Connecticut: 9 below (previous record was minus 8 in 1965).
— Bridgeport, Connecticut: 4 below (previous record was 5 degrees above zero in 1996).

How Cold Can it Get in New England? Minus 50 Degrees is the Record

Two days later, temperatures in parts of the Northeast had climbed as much as 60 degrees higher than during the peak of the cold.

Extreme Cold in New England Today and Saturday, Plus Safety Tips

Record Cold Temperatures in New England and the Northeast

Look for more warmth with climate change. Since 1901, temperatures have climbed about 3 degrees or higher in New England, the Fourth National Climate Assessment says.

“The seasonal climate, natural systems, and accessibility of certain types of recreation are threatened by declining snow and ice, rising sea levels, and rising temperatures,” the 2018 report says.

By 2035, the Northeast is projected to be more than 3.6 degrees warmer, on average, than during the preindustrial era. That would be the largest increase in the lower 48 states, and it would take place as early as two decades before global average temperatures hit a similar milestone, the report says.

According to Climate Central, winter was the fastest warming season for nearly three-quarters of U.S. locations analyzed. Locations with the fastest winter warming since 1970 were clustered in the Northeast and the Great Lakes region.

In the Northeast, winter precipitation has increasingly fallen as rain instead of snow — a trend that’s projected to continue this century, with the snow-rain transition zone shifting northward, according to Climate Central.

More images, including 18 of my recent photos at Newfound Lake in New Hampshire:

Source: National Weather Service New York NY office