< Back to front page Text size – +

Forecasters warn of brutal wind chill tonight

E-mail|Link|Comments () January 29, 2010 04:22 PM

John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

The fashions on the mannequins were cool, but Downtown Crossing vendor Michael Mainey of East Boston was cooooold today.

By Shana Wickett, Globe Correspondent

Jack Frost came back today, and he did a lot more than nip at your nose. The cold weather is expected to continue tonight, with temperatures plummeting and a biting wind making it feel even colder.

The National Weather Service has issued a wind chill advisory for central and western Massachusetts, warning that wind chills will drop to 15 to 20 below zero tonight through Saturday morning as Arctic air continues to move through southern New England.

“It’s pretty brutal out there,” said Jeremiah Pyle, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Taunton.

In the relatively balmy city of Boston, forecasters are calling for the temperature to drop to 8, with a wind chill value of 10 below zero, by early Saturday morning.

The wind has made today’s high temperatures near 20 degrees feel much colder, with wind chills between 0 and minus 5 degrees, Pyle said. The winds will slow down around sunset.

Saturday’s weather will be less windy but still cold, with temperatures pushing the low to mid-20s and wind chills at 5 to 10 degrees.

“It’s looking like it’ll hang in for the whole weekend, and we may warm up a tad for the beginning of next week,” Pyle said. “The coldest of the weather will definitely be this weekend.”