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MT. WASHINGTON, N.H. (WBZ NewsRadio) — One of the coldest places in the United States got even colder this weekend.
Mt. Washington in New Hampshire was hit with record low temperatures as an arctic cold front moved across New England Friday into Saturday.
Researchers working at the Mt. Washington Observatory recorded a low temperature of -47 degrees Fahrenheit at the mountain summit early Saturday morning, tying the previous record.
In order to record the temperature at Mt. Washington's summit, weather observers must brave the potentially lethal elements once every hour.
"Observations can take as long as 15 minutes, so you’ll have to brave those extremely cold temperatures," meteorologist and Mt. Washington weather observer Francis Tarasiewicz told WBZ NewsRadio Saturday. "Really the most important thing is to sort of keep an eye on each other, make sure there’s no exposed skin. Personally I was feeling sort of like a low grade sunburn within just a couple of seconds."
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The weather was so cold that the observatory's standard recording instrument was not enough for the job.
"We go outside and actually spin the sling psychrometer, our typical thermometer which goes down to about 20 degrees below zero," Tarasiewicz said. "Obviously that wasn’t going to work, so we sort of had to break out the big guns and we took out our thermometer that goes down to about 80 degrees below zero."
The wind chill got as low as -108 degrees Fahrenheit, which impacted Tarasiewicz on more than one occasion during his trips outside the station.
"I definitely got knocked over a couple of times," Tarasiewicz said. "A humbling experience to just be sort of shoved by the wind in those conditions."
Despite working at what is described as the home of the world's worst weather, the Northern Vermont University-Lyndon graduate is proud of what he and his team do.
"It’s definitely tiring work, but it’s a good tired. It’s just very fulfilling work," said Tarasiewicz.
Temperatures in New England are expected to warm up on Sunday as the cold front pushes its way out of the area.
WBZ's Shari Small (@ShariSmallNews) reports.
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