NEW YORK — The New York weather forecast for the weekend: cold, colder, coldest.
Officials warned Friday of single-digit temperatures and wind gusts of up to 45 mph from an arctic front blowing through the city and its suburbs after an unseasonably mild January, with the wind chill making the outdoors feel more like 5 to 10 degrees below zero in the coldest snap of 2023.
“A dangerously cold air mass is expected to settle over the region,” warned a National Weather Service bulletin advising the change would be dramatic. By midafternoon, the temperature was already heading into the teens compared to a Thursday afternoon high of 39 degrees.
Brooklyn dog walker Sam Riebesehl, 38, had two customers cancel their appointments as he waited in vain for the temperature to go up.
“It’s getting cold throughout the day,” he said. “You usually expect the sun to come up and it to get warmer. But by the afternoon, it’s going to be colder than it was in the morning.”
Senegalese immigrant Mamadou Fall found few customers for the berets and mittens up for sale on his Manhattan folding table, with most folks on the street already dressed for the cold.
“It is not like this in Africa,” he said as winds whipped debris down the streets. “It’s windy, windy, windy and cold, cold cold. Nobody is stopping by to buy anything.”
And things were only supposed to get worse.
Temperatures overnight were anticipated to plunge, with a low of 9 degrees in Manhattan, 4 degrees in White Plains and zero degrees in New Haven, Conn.
A “Code Blue” weather emergency notice was in place across the five boroughs, with lodging available for the homeless and outreach teams connecting with those in need to offer refuge in shelters, drop-in centers and Safe Havens housing programs.
New Yorkers were encouraged to call the 311 hotline and ask for outreach assistance if they encounter homeless people in need of a place to find shelter. And the Long Island Railroad announced its waiting rooms will remain open overnight in response to the deep freeze.
NYC Transit said additional personnel will be brought in to handle any service or equipment issues related to the weather, while Metro-North announced plans for cold weather track patrols to monitor any problems created by the dropping temperatures.
Elie Green, 44, who moved back to Brooklyn two weeks ago after 18 years in Los Angeles, was surprised by the mild January weather that greeted her — and now braced for her first ultra-cold spell in a long time.
“That’s what I was telling my friend yesterday, I said I couldn’t bear the cold,” she said. “And he was like ‘How are you going to survive?’ I just dress for it and bear with it, be smart and try not to be outdoors.”
Amazon deliveryman Tvsi Well, 26, of Forest Hills, Queens was busy chasing down packages blown off his truck by the stiff winds, expected to approach 50 mph at Kennedy Airport.
“This weather is biting me,” he said. “It’s brutal.”
But it’s not the worst he’s experienced on the job: “I work in all kinds of weather. I work in blizzards.”
Photographer Anita Chernewski, from the Upper East Side, found herself without much company while out shopping.
“It’s too windy,” he said. “Very, very windy. Nobody is outside. It’s freezing. But it’s February, and this is what February is.”
By Saturday afternoon, the city can expect sunshine with a high near 28 degrees — although weather officials still expect dramatically lower wind chill values.
Upper West Side resident Livia Wise, speaking to the Daily News from Florida, wasn’t too worried about the cold weather back home after heading south for the Sunshine State.
“The sun is shining bright,” she said. “Send us some snow and cold wind.”
The good news comes in the Sunday forecast, with the National Weather Service predicting a partly sunny day with a high near 45. Southwest wind 13 to 15 mph. But that was little solace to 15-year-old Trinity Prep student Helena Amanuel.
“I never thought it would be this cold,” she said. “It makes me think of summer. I took it for granted.”
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