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| Whiteface Mountain (Photo provided by the Wild Center) |
This past weekend, the eastern part of the United States experienced record-low temperatures. Boston reached -9 degrees, breaking a record from 1934. Central Park in Manhattan was as low as -1 degrees and had not reached below zero since 1994. New York City had not reached such low temperatures in over a hundred years. Temperatures in Albany dropped to -23.6 degrees, its lowest ever. Even right here on campus, temperatures were far in the negatives.
However, one of the coldest spots was right in our back yards, the Adirondacks, or more specifically, the top of Whiteface Mountain. Last Saturday night, temperatures fell to -38 degrees while the wind chill was at a numbing -114 degrees. Wind speeds reached as high as 45 mph and froze everything in it's past as shown by the picture below. The mountain was even colder than Antarctica. The extreme temperatures mostly had to do with the elevation of the mountain and the wind speed. According to the Wild Center, the temperatures on top of Whiteface Mountain fluctuate very heavily. In the summer, temperatures can reach 90 degrees while in the winter they can drop to -45 degrees. The Adirondacks are usually some of the coldest places in the United States.
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| Rime Ice Forming on a Tree (Photo from the Wild Center) |
The record-low temperatures was called by a polar vortex that shot across the Northeast. It brought an extremely cold air mass directly from the North Pole along the Northeast. A similar event occurred almost two years ago in the Chicago area.
Sources:
- http://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/local/new-york/2016/02/15/-114-summit-ny-mountain/80407508/
- http://www.aol.com/article/2016/02/15/wind-chill-on-new-york-mountain-hits-a-frigid-minus-114-degrees/21312812/
- http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/upstate-ny-mountain-hits-110-degrees-wind-chill-summit-article-1.2531580
- http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/polar-vortex-blast-northeast-coldest-air-decade-article-1.2529267
It is crazy that the record low temperatures in the eastern part of the United States occurred when we had to read about the climate that of the Adirondacks! This nicely ties in with the Marchand reading of why it is so cold in the Adirondacks. I could not even imagine being in -38 degree weather with a wind chill at -114 degrees! I wonder what people who live in the Adirondacks even do when the temperature is so low. Have people adapted to being in very cold weather? Or is the Adirondacks dead when temperatures reach that low?
ReplyDeleteIt is terrifying to think it can be that cold! No wonder people have had such difficult times inhabiting the park in the past. How could anyone ever make a living off the land with weather like that?
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