Don’t let the sun fool you. You should bundle up before heading outdoors on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Temperatures across Massachusetts plummeted in rapid fashion yesterday afternoon into the evening and overnight hours, going from a balmy 57 degrees at noon in Boston to an expected 17 at midnight.
When residents wake up this morning, the wind chill will make it feel like it’s in the low single digits, according to the National Weather Service. The low temps will persist throughout the day before slowly rising to a high near 28 on Sunday, but with a real feel in the teens.
“You get these big storm systems this time of year that kind of put on this rollercoaster ride of temperatures,” said Kyle Pederson, a meteorologist at the NSW Boston office.
Even with the Arctic blast, which has ravaged nearly the entire country, residents shouldn’t worry too much about the wet roads from Friday’s wicked wind and rain storm turning into thick sheets of ice.
Coastal flooding had significant impacts in parts of Boston and along the South Coast and Buzzards Bay throughout the day Friday.
Driving conditions should be OK for the last minute holiday shopping rush and Christmas Eve church services on Saturday, Pederson said. If there’s still some standing water, drivers are urged to use caution, he said.
“It could be a little slippery,” Pederson said. “However, we should dry out pretty quickly with how windy it is behind the system.”
Friday’s storm brought strong winds and across the region, knocking down trees and wires, leaving 60,000 households in the dark early Friday. That number barely dropped to roughly 59,457 customers without power around 6:30 p.m., according to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency’s power outage map.
Wayland was the hardest hit, with roughly 2,700, or 47%, of its Eversource customers out of power Friday evening, the map showed. Towns in the Merrimack Valley also were feeling the brunt of the storm, with Haverhill, Methuen, Lowell, Andover and Billerica all having more than 1,000 residents in the dark.
National Grid has nearly 2,000 field personnel, including crews from Texas, Mississippi and Florida, responding to emergency 911 calls, assessing damage, clearing trees and making repairs to electrical infrastructure, according to a release.
High wind gusts made effective restoration efforts a challenge.
Gusts reached up to 75 miles per hour on Cape Cod, 65 mph at TF Green Airport in Warwick, R.I. and 60 mph in Boston, Pederson said.
“We know losing power can be frustrating for our customers, particularly on a busy holiday weekend,” said Tanya Moniz-Witten, vice president of New England Electric Operations. “We will not stop until every customer has their electricity back.”
