Extreme Cold/Wind Chill — New Castle, Delaware

2007-02-06 · New Castle, Delaware

Wider weather episode

An arctic air mass that originated near the North Pole invaded Delaware on the 5th and 6th. The combination of the unseasonably cold air and gusty northwest winds produced wind chill factors as low as zero to 10 degrees below zero during the mornings of the 5th and 6th. The lowest temperatures occurred during the morning of the 6th and were around 10 degrees above zero. The extreme cold claimed the life of a 55-year-old homeless man in Wilmington (New Castle County) and caused at least one case of hypothermia. A 37-year-old woman was treated for hypothermia after walking away from an accident in Brandywine Hundred (New Castle County) and headed toward a horse farm. A Code Purple was declared in Wilmington (New Castle County). Many shelters were opened for the homeless including some by the Salvation Army. There was a 50 percent increase in homeless seeking shelter. The police throughout the state considered stranded motorists priority calls. The AAA received many calls about dead car batteries. The unseasonably cold weather caused many water pipes to freeze. One business in Kent County was responding to about 20 to 30 emergency calls per day.

As this arctic air mass was arriving on the evening of the 4th, a 52-year-old man drowned after slipping off a ladder on the side of the 645-foot-long Energy Enterprise freighter. The gentleman was a boat pilot and the rungs to the ladder could have been icy or the boat could have pitched in the wind or been flipped and lifted as the pilot vessel and the freighter rolled in six foot seas. This accident occurred in the Atlantic Ocean about two miles southeast of Cape Henlopen.

Actual lowest temperatures included 7 degrees in Wilmington (New Castle County), 9 degrees in Redden (Sussex County) and at the New Castle County Airport, 10 degrees in Sandtown (Kent County) and Georgetown (Sussex County) and 11 degrees in Greenwood (Sussex County).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 16586. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.