NY Faces Arctic Cold Blast

BY ANNIE KARNI , REUVEN BLAU – NY Daily News

An arctic onslaught has descended on New York that could produce the coldest temperatures the city has seen in 20 years.

Temperatures were in the high single-digits early Friday, and forecasts predicted it would not get any better over the weekend, with the worst of it coming Sunday night.

“Sunday could be the coldest day in at least 20 years,” Mayor de Blasio said Thursday during a press conference at City Hall. “This is serious stuff.”

The frigid weather will last throughout the weekend, as two arctic blasts — one stretching from the Midwest to the East Coast and a second in the South — batter the country.

In New York City on Friday the single-digit temperatures recorded before dawn felt as cold as 20 degrees below zero with the wind chill, and the National Weather Service put the city on alert for high winds. The freezing cold will come with snow, too: Between one and three inches of the white stuff is expected on Saturday, forecasters said.

Temperatures were not expected to surpass the mid-teens on Friday and again on Saturday, and the mercury could plunge to a bone-chilling zero degrees on Sunday night, the National Weather Service predicted. With winds gusting up to 25 miles per hour late Sunday, it could feel like 20 degrees below zero.

The last time New York City’s high temperature was 15 degrees was in 2004, and a high between 10 and 14 degrees hasn’t been recorded in the Big Apple since January 1994, the Weather Channel reported.

Stay indoors if you don’t have to be out to be out,” de Blasio warned Thursday. “Any prolonged exposure could be dangerous.”