While the big chill continued its ear-numbing crawl across the East yesterday, Coast Guard captains carving shipping lanes through frozen New York-area waterways said they were working in a Winter Wonderland.
“The guys that run the ships love it. They really enjoy their jobs,” said Chief Warrant Officer Mark Palmer, who’s coordinating the Coast Guard icebreaking operations in New York Harbor.
The crews of five cutters are working day and night escorting freight and petroleum ships up and down the rivers and maintaining pathways through the sheets of ice.
Bone-chilling temperatures and sub-zero wind chills are keeping most people indoors – but the crews aboard these ships wouldn’t want it one degree warmer.
“They like this stuff. They feel like they’re doing something,” Palmer said.
He said the most vital role the ships serve is providing Hudson River escorts for oil tankers – whose contents will eventually provide heat for over 650,000 homes in upstate New York and New England.
Coast Guard crews will have their work cut out for them, as temperatures are expected to stay mostly below freezing over the next week.
City dwellers will see the mercury rise above 32 degrees tomorrow, but it will quickly plummet back down early next week. There is also a chance of light snow showers Monday.
Across the South yesterday, temperatures fell to the teens and single digits, with parts of south Florida dipping uncharacteristically below the freezing mark.
But citrus growers in Florida breathed a little easier because overnight temperatures stayed a little above the threshold at which serious crop damage can appear.
The cold had threatened Florida’s $9.1 billion-a-year citrus crop. Casey Pace, a spokeswoman for Florida Citrus Mutual, said there were no reports of cold damage to citrus crops in the state.
WEATHER FORECAST
Saturday: 32 degrees Wind chill 7 degrees
Sunday: 36 degrees Wind chill 18 degrees
Monday: 24 degrees Wind chill 7 degrees
Tuesday: 29 degrees Wind chill -2 degrees
PAST 7 DAYS
Saturday 29 degrees
Sunday 28 degrees
Monday 31 degrees
Tuesday 26 degrees
Wednesday 22 degrees
Thursday 17 degrees
Friday 26 degrees
Saturday forecasts around the nation:
Casper, Wyoming: High 43, Low 25
Chicago, ILL: High 28, Low 19
Miami, Fla.: High 67, Low 58
Boston, Mass.: High 28, Low 18
Anchorage, Alaska: High 20, Low 10