Brrr-ace yourself for the season’s coldest day!
New York City is expected to be hit over the weekend with the winter’s lowest temperatures — plunging into dangerously frigid single digits with brutal arctic winds, meteorologists warned.
The mercury is forecast to dip to an icy low of 4 degrees Saturday with “feels like” temperatures as low as -20 degrees, forecasters said.
“If you’re not well protected, if you’re out there for more than half an hour, you’re going to be in trouble with frostbite and hyperthermia,” said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tom Kines.
Saturday is expected to reach a snowy low of 6 degrees before heating up to a high of 24 degrees Monday and into the 30s by Tuesday, Kines said.
The last time New York City felt temps this low was on Feb. 4, 2023, when the city shivered through 3 degrees.
By contrast, the coldest ever Feb. 8 on record was -7, set in 1934. For some context, the average temp in NYC in February is 35.9 degrees.
Longterm, the weather is expected to get gradually warmer next week— until mid-month, when highs could spike into the 40s, said Accuweather Senior Meteorologist Carl Erickson.
“As we get past Feb. 10 the real extreme cold will ease up ,” he said. “But it won’t last.”
It will be back to extreme cold again at the end of the month as temps reach the 20s around Feb. 25th, he said. “Once we’re past the 25th and 26th, that’s when we’ll get back into that prolonged cold spell.”
He said the weekend’s low temperatures are “likely” to be the coldest the Big Apple will see for the remainder of the winter.