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New Year’s Eve Brings Record Cold For Much of US

Washington (January 2, 2017): With much of the Midwest and Northeast already besieged by freezing temperatures, ice and snow, the weather is going from bad to worse — and spreading to the South — just as revelers rang in the new year.

In New York, hundreds of thousands of people packed Times Square in the 9-degree Fahrenheit weather, with a wind chill of 4 degrees below zero, to watch the 2018 ball drop and confetti rain down on the street.The frigid temperature made it the second-coldest New Year’s Eve ball drop on record in New York. The coldest ball drop in New York City still holds at 1-degree Fahrenheit in 1917.

New Year’s Eve is expected to be 20 to 40 degrees colder than usual across much of the United States, forecasters say. As many as 27 record lows are expected to be set on New Year’s Day. And 24 record lows for January 2 are possible on Tuesday.Of the lower 48 states, only 10 weren’t under a wind chill alert, and only two of those are east of the Rocky Mountains: Florida and South Carolina.

Southern regions unused to such temperatures could see some icy roads as an early morning hard freeze follows rain.

Brownsville, Texas, on the southern border with Mexico, could see wind chill in the 20s. In Atlanta, which holds an annual Peach Drop, temperatures are predicted to dip to 22 degrees.In Boston, forecasters predict a low of minus 1, with wind chill values as low as minus 7 degrees on New Year’s Eve, and 2 degrees on the first day of the year. Mayor Marty Walsh urged residents to take precautions for the bitterly cold weather.

“In times like these, it’s vital for residents to look out for one another, and I encourage all Bostonians to reach out to the city if they or their neighbors need help this winter season,” he said in a statement.The arctic front that hit earlier already has brutalized parts of the United States. It was so cold in Massachusetts last week that sharks were washing up on the shoreline of Cape Cod Bay, “likely stranded due to cold shock,” the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy said.

In Rochester, New York, calls to AAA Roadside Assistance in the rural areas surged because of snow. “On a normal winter day in Rochester, we see about 300 calls in the metro area and much lower in the rural areas, said AAA Roadside Assistance Manager Mark Mika. “This week that`s changed. In the rural areas it has jumped considerably, almost to 600 calls in one day.”

Beleaguered Erie, Pennsylvania, has gotten more snow in December — 121.3 inches — than its average for an entire winter season, meteorologist Chinchar said. And the city is forecast to get as much as 6 inches in the next two days.

There’s no light at the end of the snow tunnel for much of the United States. Although it will get a few degrees warmer in the coming week, temperatures are expected to drop again late in the week.

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