Extreme Cold/Wind Chill in Montgomery, Pennsylvania

An arctic air mass that originated near the North Pole invaded eastern Pennsylvania. 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 around Philadelphia, around 10 degrees below zero in the Lehigh Valley and Berks County and around 20 degrees below zero in the Poconos. The extreme cold caused the death of two males. A homeless man was found dead near the Falls Bridge in Philadelphia and a 25-year-old man was found dead in a driveway in Plymouth Township (Montgomery County). The lowest temperatures were in the single numbers across much of eastern Pennsylvania except for some below zero readings in the Poconos.

The extreme cold caused many municipalities to declare Code Blue winter weather alerts. This sets into motion efforts by churches, local charitable organizations and outreach programs to open shelters and help assist getting the homeless indoors. Many schools in the Lehigh Valley and the Poconos and had delayed openings both mornings. Many pipes froze across the region and many vehicles had dead batteries. Firefighters had a particular difficult time battling blazes in these conditions as in some instances water froze in tanker trucks and fire hydrants froze. The cold silenced the emergency alarm system in Nazareth Borough (Northampton County). The extreme cold helped Pennsylvania Power and Light set a new hourly wintertime usage record. between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. EST on the 5th, 7,318 megawatts of electricity were used, breaking the previous record of 7,274 megawatts. PECO Energy also reported the highest gas and electricity usage since 2004.

Actual lowest temperatures included -9 degrees at the F.E. Walter Dam (Carbon County), -4F in Mount Pocono (Monroe County), 1 degree in Springtown (Bucks County), 2 degrees in Lehighton (Carbon County), 5 degrees in Easton (Northampton County), Reading (Berks County) and at the Lehigh Valley International Airport, 6 degrees in Doylestown (Bucks County), Pottstown (Montgomery County) and West Chester (Chester County), 7 degrees in Neshaminy Falls (Bucks County) and 10 degrees at the Philadelphia International Airport.