Colder than Antarctica? What caused New York’s life-threatening deep freeze

Life-threatening winds battered much of the Northeast and New England over the weekend, with temperatures in New York City on Sunday colder than parts of Antarctica.Temperatures hit 3 degrees in the city on Sunday, with biting winds dragging the actual temperature down to minus 14 degrees. According to the New York Post, wind chills reached below 40 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of the Northeast.As of Sunday evening, the National Weather Service had issued rare extreme cold warnings to more than 43 million people, including major metropolitan areas such as New York and Philadelphia.“The last time [New York City] “We had a similar warning to this morning in 2004,” Fox Weather meteorologist Stephen Morgan said Friday.By comparison, McMurdo Station has a pleasant Antarctica temperature of 21 degrees, which is 18 degrees warmer than New York City.New Yorkers have the latest round of winter misery to thank for a current of arctic air moving south from the frozen tundra of northern Canada’s Hudson Bay.“Across many areas of the Northeast away from the coast, this sustained cold is the most extreme in at least the past decade, and in some areas the past two decades,” said Dan DePodwin, senior director of forecast operations for AccuWeather.“Many locations will end up with several consecutive days below freezing, which would make the top 10 list of longest consecutive days on record,” he added.This weekend will be the coldest day of a record cold snap, the worst in more than two decades.“The Northeastern U.S. will once again experience severe cold this weekend,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter said.He added: “The combination of arctic air and gusty winds is likely to leave many people in the region feeling colder than anywhere else so far this winter.”So far this year, at least 17 people have died outdoors in New York City, 13 of whom were confirmed to have died of hypothermia.Despite the rising death toll, Mayor Mamdani has refused to force homeless people off the streets and into shelters.Other major cities including Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Boston also opened shelters, and Mayor Michelle Wu issued a cold weather emergency for the city that lasts through Monday.