Arctic air topples temperature records in NYC
Well, we can officially declare that this arctic airmass was not “hype”. In fact, it was very much the exact opposite. Low temperature records for the day were broken on Wednesday morning in and around New York City. LaGuardia (22 F) and Kennedy Airports (23 F) set new record low temperatures, as did Bridgeport (23 F) and Islip (22 F). Temperatures in the upper teens were common throughout the area. Making matters worse, west-northwest winds kept wind chill values from the single digits into the lower teens especially inland.
The cold wasn’t localized to our local area, either. As we discussed in a post yesterday, Tuesday was the coldest November morning across the average of the entire United States since 1976. The average temperature at 12z was only 19.4 F in the United States, breaking the 19.9 F record from November 30th, 1976. A whopping 85% of the United States was below freezing at that time on Tuesday morning, and more than 58% was below 20 F. Additional records may be broken on Wednesday afternoon, where the lowest high temperature records around the area airports sit near 35 F.