What felt like -78°C was reached on the peaks, -51°C in some villages, with gusts approaching 200 km/h. The shots of Mount Washington, a mountain in the state of New Hampshire, are particularly spectacular.

A cold snap from the Arctic has caused a dizzying drop in temperatures in northeastern Canada and the United States in recent days, breaking records in some places.

“It’s an epic arctic (cold) snap” never seen on a “generation” scale, specifically “something not seen in northern and eastern Maine since 1982 and 1988,” noted the National Weather Service (NWS) in a firm notice on Friday.

The first images that have reached us are impressive. In particular, those captured on Friday night from the summit of Mount Washington, a nearly 2,000-meter-tall mountain in the state of New Hampshire.

-42°C was reached, with gusts approaching 200 km/h, bringing with it a feeling of -80°C, “a new record for the United States”, Note weather journalist Guillaume Séchet on twitter.

In Montreal, according to weather services, it was -29°C in the early morning at the international airport and -41°C taking into account the wind chill. Local weather services from Maine meanwhile reported a perceived temperature of -51°C in the small town of Frenchville near the border with Canada. The mercury fell to -16°C in Central Park.

The polar cold caused record electricity consumption in Quebec. Consumption peaked late Friday afternoon. The electricity company Hydro Quebec has asked its customers to reduce their heating by one to two degrees and to use less hot water. In Boston, schools were closed as a precaution on Friday.

“polar vortex”

This extreme cold is caused by a meteorological phenomenon called the “polar vortex”. It is an upper low, considered persistent, that forms near a pole of the planet and then moves.

After Meteo Francethe temperature variation within the polar vortex is “cyclic” according to the seasons and the minimums are logically lower there during the winter period.

Rain, snow, storms, polar cold and sweltering heat: the Northeast of the United States is exposed to extreme weather phenomena all year round, which are associated with loss of life and property damage.

Most recently, on Christmas weekend 2022, a snowstorm and snowstorm hit the city of Buffalo, New York, killing dozens.

To protect the population, local authorities are advising to limit their movements to avoid hypothermia, which can occur quickly at these temperatures. The worst cold in the United States hit Boston and New York in the night from Friday to Saturday. Temperatures are expected to rise again on Sunday.