Winds at Whiteface Mountain's summit blasted at 45 mph on Saturday night going into Sunday morning.
© The Wild CenterWinds at Whiteface Mountain's summit blasted at 45 mph on Saturday night going into Sunday morning.
While New York City had its coldest start to Valentine's Day in 100 years on Sunday, it would seem balmy compared with the wicked wind chill at upstate Whiteface Mountain.

As temperatures dropped across the Northeast from the blast of a polar vortex, the wind chill at Whiteface, near Lake Placid, made it feel like a body- and mind-numbing minus 114 degrees late Saturday and into Sunday. Central Park could only muster a minus 1 degree.

The Wild Center, which works with the Atmospheric Science Research Center at SUNY Albany, recorded the frigid temperature from a research station at the mountain's summit.


"The extreme temperatures (Saturday) night on Whiteface have to do with its elevation, 4,865 feet and the wind speed," Tracey Legat, the center's communications manager at the center told the Daily News. "The mountains of the Adirondacks are often some of the coldest places in the lower 48 states during the year."

The Arctic winds howled through the summit at about 45 mph, freezing almost everything in their path.

The center managed to capture a photo of a tree being turned into a popsicle as the winds formed "monstrous rime ice" around it.

tree is exposed to minus 114 degrees wind chill at Whiteface Mountain's summit.
© The Wild CenterThis is what happens when a tree is exposed to minus 114 degrees wind chill at Whiteface Mountain's summit.
The mountain's summit was actually colder than Antarctica on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.