Arctic air hit the city Saturday, bringing dangerously cold conditions, with wind chills frequently dropping below zero and feels-like temperatures as low as negative 10.
Saturday marked the coldest conditions the city has seen in three years, with wind gusts up to 50 mph. An Extreme Cold Warning was issued for 6 p.m. Saturday until 1 p.m. Sunday — the first time this alert has been issued since its creation in 2024.
What You Need To Know
Arctic air hit the city Saturday, bringing dangerously cold conditions, with wind chills frequently expected to drop below zero
Saturday marked the coldest the city has been in three years, with wind gusts up to 50 mph
About 60 new hotel shelter units have opened this weekend, along with 62 warming centers and vehicles
Mayor Zohran Mamdani also announced a ramping up of the city’s street outreach operations
In Midtown, Manhattan, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School is just one of dozens of warming centers established across the city for New Yorkers to seek refuge from the weather.
As of Friday, the city said 17 people have died outdoors during the recent cold weather, mostly due to hypothermia.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani reiterated in a news conference Friday that a Code Blue is in effect for the city. The alert is designed to make it easy for New Yorkers to access shelters, and Mamdani stressed that this weekend’s weather could be lethal.
About 60 new hotel shelter units have opened this weekend, along with 62 warming centers and vehicles. Partnerships with CUNY, Northwell Health and local schools are helping provide even more options to escape the cold.
One of the city’s warming buses was parked in near Times Square Saturday morning. NY1 was not allowed to film inside, but the bus was full of New Yorkers seeking relief.
Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Homeless Rights Project, says it can be difficult for the city to convince some homeless residents to go into shelters.
“The problem they’re dealing with is a legacy of many years of distrust. For a long time the city’s response has been to destroy people’s belongings and push them out of the places they had found, and also not have options to offer that people wanted to take advantage of or they felt safe with,” Goldfein said.
The Legal Aid Society has also called on the city to increase outreach efforts. On Friday, Mayor Mamdani announced a ramping up of the city’s street outreach operations, now adding school nurses who have been trained in outreach to support Department of Homeless Services workers to get people off the streets.
“To those who may consider themselves more comfortable on the streets, I want to speak directly to you, to implore you to come inside. These temperatures are too low and too dangerous to survive. Please wait out the cold in a safe place with a warm bed,” Mamdani said.
“In the past, we’ve seen administrations have had the NYPD lead, and that obviously was not the most welcoming face. So it certainly helps to be able to have people who can have better conversations, but in those conversations they have to have something to offer,” Goldfein said.
The mayor is also reminding New Yorkers that if you see someone in need of shelter on the streets, you can call 311 so an outreach worker or a first responder can provide them with aid and get them to shelter.