Miami.- Millions of people in the United States are preparing for a new cold wave due to the arrival of a new arctic front this weekend, which threatens to reach real temperatures of -34 degrees Celsius in areas of the northwest and break records in New York.
"A dangerously cold arctic air mass" will spread across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic between this Saturday and Monday, the National Weather Service indicated in its latest bulletin.
The highs are not expected to go beyond -6 degrees Celsius in those regions and several historical cold records will be equaled or surpassed, according to the
NWS.
The cold wave will be accompanied by strong winds that will reduce the wind chill to "dangerously low" temperatures that could reach -34 degrees Celsius inland in the northeast and between -12 and -15 degrees near the coast between Saturday morning and Sunday morning.
"These low temperatures, combined with the wind, represent a mortal risk of hypothermia and frostbite for exposed skin," warned the organization.
Snowfall will also be experienced in areas of the northeast with moderate snow accumulations, which may lead to scenes similar to those of last January when the country faced another cold wave from the Arctic.
A historic cold wave in New York
That winter storm, which reached
latitudes as low as Florida, left more than 100 dead across the country, according to counts from the national press, in addition to power outages and the cancellation of flights and classes.
In New York, one of the cities affected by this new arctic front, its mayor, Zoran Mamdani, warned yesterday at a press conference that the actual temperatures will drop to -23.3 degrees Celsius in the city, "which will mean lethal conditions."
If the forecast is met, this weekend would be in third position behind February 9, 1934, when -26 degrees Celsius were reached, which holds the historical cold record; and December 30, 1917, when -25 degrees Celsius were reached, according to data recorded by the station of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) located in Central Park.