BOSTON — After a brief reprieve of warmer temperatures, the Northeast is bracing for another blast of record-setting cold weather that is expected to fill homeless shelters and test the mettle of dedicated New England football fans.
Residents of the Northeast will again need to shield themselves from the cold this week.
Forecasters predict Boston and the rest of New England will see the coldest temperatures in two decades. New York and Philadelphia will face below-zero wind chill temperatures. The cold will extend as far south as Washington, D.C., where temperatures will be 20 degrees lower than normal.
The deep freeze is expected to continue into Sunday, when the New England Patriots play the Indianapolis Colts in the American Football Conference Championship at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass.
Last Saturday, 68,000 fans braved temperatures near zero to watch the Patriots beat the Tennessee Titans 17-14. It was the coldest game in Patriots history. The team handed out 10,000 hand-warmers and thousands of cups of decaffeinated coffee. Red Cross officials warned that regular coffee could increase the risk of hypothermia, or subnormal body temperature.
Moderate temperatures in the 30s today will quickly give way to a low of 2 degrees in Boston by Wednesday morning. By Thursday morning, temperatures are expected to dip to 8 below zero in Boston and 8 above zero in New York.
"We haven't seen cold like this in a couple of decades," said Mike Jackson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass.
Officials are preparing for the worst. New York is adding 1,000 beds for the homeless to the 38,500 shelter spaces already in use. In Boston, patrols will look for anyone at risk of hypothermia.
The cold weather has also affected heating oil prices. They are as high as $1.60 per gallon, 30 cents above normal. But no shortages are forecast.