The coldest air of the year will take hold of the region overnight Friday and plunge wind chills into negative territory just in time for the morning rush.
NBC10 First Alert Weather meteorologists expect wind chills to hover between -5 and -15 degrees as strong northwesterly winds gust to upward of 30 mph.
The dangerously cold air will eventually climb on Saturday just in time for a small snowstorm, but there could be record cold on tap for next week.
Jumping back to Friday, here's how cold it could feel when you walk out the door:
Wind Chill Temperatures by 7 a.m. Friday
Temperatures will rise into the 20s by the time the afternoon comes along. It won't last long, however.
Saturday Snow
A small snowstorm is expected to move through the area on Saturday afternoon. Accumulations will be larger in the north and west, according to the NBC10 First Alert Weather Team.
Frigid Temperatures Return
The dangerous cold should return on Sunday with an expected high of 18 degrees. Then temperatures will get extremes overnight Monday as lows plummet to the low single digits. Philadelphia could match its record of 2 degrees and Allentown will be close to its record of -7 degrees.
Stay with the NBC10 First Alert Weather Team for the latest weather updates throughout the weekend.
Snow, high winds and freezing temperatures are expected to leave much of the Eastern United States shivering this week.
Here's how you can minimize the misery:
1. Bundle Up (and Swap Out the Leggings)
It might seem obvious, but piling on a few extra layers is a great way to stay warm, especially if you have to be outside. Keeping your core warm is especially important when temperatures dip below freezing, so try wearing an extra shirt or two under your coat.
Worried about looking bulky? Many sporting goods companies make cold-weather gear that is slim enough to be worn even under work clothes.
For ladies who love wearing leggings, try swapping them out for long underwear. Several hiking-gear companies make long underwear that has the same look as leggings and will help keep you warm. A bonus: Most long underwear is meant to dry quickly, so leftover snow and slush won't leave your legs damp.
2. Indulge in Foods That Help You Keep Warm
You already know that eating well in the winter could help you stay healthy, but did you know it might help keep you warm, too? Eating extra, healthy fats during the winter can help rev up metabolism, which in turn heats the body, according to Columbia Health.
If your New Year's resolution was to drop a few pounds, don't worry -- you can always skip the extra fat and try eating warmer foods and drinks. Try soups, spicy foods, hot coffee and teas to reverse the chill!
3. We're Sorry: Alcohol Decreases Core Temperatures
Although alcoholic beverages might make you feel warm, they actually decrease your core temperature and can be dangerous during winter months.
According to The New York Times and a study by Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, alcohol reverses some reflexes that control body temperature, especially the body's ability to shiver. Alcohol can also make you sweat, even when it is cold, which can lower core temperatures even more.
4. Keep Your Toes Toasty
Hypothermia is most likely to begin in extremities like your hands and feet, so keeping your toes warm is important. Whether you're walking to work or just around the block, make sure to wear sturdy, insulated shoes that will help prevent slips on slick surfaces and keep your feet dry.
Looking for a pair? Try a good pair of hiking books or, for the fashionista, this article from Glamour offers boots that are cozy and cute. Also, consider wearing an extra pair of socks (here's a helpful article to help you choose the right pair).
5. Sunglasses... Even in the Winter
If you're walking in the snow during the day, wear sunglasses to protect your eyes from the glare.
If you are walking at night, make sure to dress in colors other than white and to wear something reflective on your person to alert drivers to your presence.
Avoid walking too close to roadways, especially near icy areas where drivers may lose control of their vehicle.
6. Remember the "Three-Feet Rule"
Space heaters are a great way to add extra heat to colder rooms, but always remember to keep anything flammable at least three feet away from the heater at all times.
Flammable items include clothing, rugs, bedding and curtains. Also remember to place the heater on a hard, non-flammable, stable surface and to turn it off completely before leaving the house. Set a reminder on your phone if you're afraid you'll forget.
7. Watch Out for Furry Friends
You might be jealous of your dog or cat's fur coat when temperatures drop, but they need to be kept warm, too.
Catherine Blake, owner of Make My Day, Please dog walking services suggests dog walks should be limited to 10 minutes.
"You also have to be careful of ice in their paws because it can act like little daggers," Blake said.
Always remember to bring pets inside when temperatures begin to drop. If they can't come inside, provide enough bedding and insulated shelter for them to keep warm. If temperatures are below freezing, remember to check pets' water and replace it if it has frozen.
8. Monitor Fires
It's easy to snooze in front of a roaring fire, but always make sure that fireplace embers are completely out before going to bed for the night.
Wood fireplaces should always have a glass or metal fire screen large enough to catch sparks and rolling logs.
9. Don't Warm Up Your Car While It's Unattended
Although letting your car heat up before you hop in can be tempting, leaving your car running when you're not around offers the perfect opportunity for thieves to steal it.
Instead, have a family member wait inside it while you finish getting ready, and then switch "shifts" with them when you have finished. Alternate who goes first to keep it fair.
10. Assemble a Car Emergency Kit
Check the CDC's car emergency checklist to ensure you are prepared in case you have a roadside emergency during inclement weather.
11. Keep Heat Constant
Setting your thermostat at the same temperature day and night will help prevent your pipes from freezing and bursting. While avoiding a high heating bill might be tempting, you could be protecting yourself from costly repairs from frozen or burst pipes.
If you are going to be away from home for an extended period of time, don't lower heat below 55 degrees.
12. Protect Pipes
Keeping the heat on isn't the only thing you can do to protect pipes from freezing.
State Farm suggests letting your hot and cold faucets drip overnight and opening cabinet doors to allow heat to get to uninsulated pipes under sinks and on exterior walls.
Locate the water shut-off valve in your home in advance of a water emergency, so you know where to go if a pipe bursts, one local water agency spokesperson advises.
13. Watch Out for Antifreeze
People often use antifreeze on sidewalks and paths to melt ice and snow, but the dangers to humans and pets if it is ingested are serious.
Know the symptoms of antifreeze poisoning in humans and monitor children who are behaving oddly after returning from playing outside.
Wipe down pets' paws, stomachs and tails when they come inside so they do not ingest antifreeze when licking themselves. Check symptoms of antifreeze poisoning in animals to ensure you are prepared in case they become sick.
14. Know the Terms
Familiarize yourself with government terms for winter weather emergencies:
15. Make Sure Roads Are Safe Before Driving
Online snow plow trackers make it easy to check when roads in your area are clear and safe to drive after snowfall.
16. Write Down Important Utility Numbers
Heavy snow and ice can settle on power lines and cause power outages. Write down utility numbers and have them handy during a storm in case you need to report an outage or incident.
17. Watch for Signs of Hypothermia
Prolonged exposure to cold temperatures can result in hypothermia, or abnormally low body temperature. A body temperature that's too low can affect the brain, which makes hypothermia particularly dangerous because the victim may not know it is happening.
Hypothermia is most likely at very cold temperatures, but it can occur even at merely cool temperatures (above 40°F) if a person becomes chilled from rain, sweat or submersion in cold water.
Check the CDC's guide for recognizing hypothermia to prepare yourself to help someone suffering from the condition.
Be on the lookout for homeless people who could get hypothermia as temperatures dip into the teens overnight. If you see someone who needs shelter or warmer clothing, call your local shelter hot line or authorities.
When the Democratic National Convention descends on Philadelphia next year, it will bring with it thousands of delegates, press from around the globe and possibly the next leader of the free world.
The quadrennial political gathering could also bring a bigger boost for one of the country's most formative cities: a multi-million dollar injection of cash into the region and its local businesses.
“Our hospitality community is on fire," Mayor Michael Nutter said Thursday, shortly after the pick was announced. "We do have this opportunity literally to make history again with hosting this convention."
Organizers and party officials estimate that the July 2016 convention will generate an overall economic impact of between $170 and $250 million in direct and indirect spending. That includes everything from hotel room rates and restaurant tabs to security details, infrastructure upgrades and construction jobs.
And while economists and others caution that figure won't necessarily translate fully to cash in the coffers of the city and its businesses, local backers say the lasting economic impact could extend beyond the dollars spent heading into and during the political production.
“First and foremost, landing the DNC for us is huge, huge visibility for the city," said Julie Cocker Graham, executive vice president of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, said in an interview Thursday. "It puts us on an international and national stage in terms of visitors and convention attendees coming to Philadelphia, and it really does prove what we’ve always known — that we are the city that offers the complete package."
Projections for how much Philly could take in during the convention are comparable to figures reported by other recent host cities, including 2012 convention host sites Tampa, Florida, and Charlotte, North Carolina.
The 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa injected $214 million directly into the local economy, with the bulk of that going to infrastructure upgrades and security reinforcements, according to local reports on a study commissioned by the host committee. Taxable sales in the region increased by $363 million year over year in the month it was held, even though organizers shortened the convention by one day because of a storm.
In 2008, when Denver hosted the Democratic National Convention, the convention translated to a regional economic impact of $266.1 million in the city's metro area, its host committee estimated. Visitors spent more than $42 million during the convention, according to a report released by the committee, including $15.6 million on lodging and $19 million on food and drink.
But Dr. Dan Murrey, who was executive director of Charlotte's host committee in 2012, said the effect there went far beyond the roughly $170 million in economic impact they estimated that the event generated.
“Before the convention, we had people who had asked where in South Carolina Charlotte was, when we were in North Carolina," he said. "So that was a big plus for us. Since then, there is a sense that people get more of what Charlotte’s about.”
Murrey said the city sought to make the effects of the convention bump last, dispatching volunteers to work on projects like community gardens and installing new recycling baskets to benefit residents long after the delegates had gone. They also used the convention to make a pitch to businesses, foreign representatives and others who might make return visits or investments.
Charlotte Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Bob Morgan said that while a convention might not necessarily transform a city's economy, it's still significant. His city, he said, was able to treat the 2012 convention "like a debut" for national and international audiences.
"It was an opportunity to spiff things up, to tell the story of Charlotte as a New South kind of city that’s on the rise, and we had just unprecedented opportunity to do things," he said.
It paid off, he and Murrey said, with business deals and roughly 25 ambassador visits coming out of conversations and connections made during the event.
Philadelphia, already a major convention hub, is hoping to see its profile rise even higher with the Democratic convention and a visit by Pope Francis this fall. One major winner of the convention will likely be the region's hospitality industry, which Cocker Graham of the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau said employs 120,000 workers.
In 2000, when Republicans flocked to Philly to nominate George W. Bush, attendees spent $24.9 million on hotels, according to a tourism report cited in local media. This time around, a top Democratic National Committee official cited "proximity of their arena and venue to the hotel rooms" as a major factor in the decision to award the contract to Philly over rival cities Brooklyn, New York, and Columbus, Ohio.
"The fact that there are 18,500 hotel rooms within a 15-minute walk of the arena, the Wells Fargo arena, the fact that you would have an opportunity for delegates to be coming back and forth and interacting very cohesively in Philadelphia was a big strength of theirs," DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told reporters in a conference call.
Still, economists and veterans of conventions caution that even with the major investment, the actual impact can be mixed for local businesses and residents. The economic impact on Tampa varied, its committee report found, with some businesses near the convention site taking a hit because of too few workers at local offices and increased security.
Murrey, who headed Charlotte's host committee in 2012, said his city's convention wasn't a boon for all, either. "Some restaurants won, and some didn't," he said. "I wouldn’t say that every restaurant and every venue would say it was a home run."
The events also come with significant price tags — an estimated $85 million in Philadelphia's case — and economic impact projections don't always reflect the full picture.
Marc Stehr, a professor of economics at Drexel University, said that while Philadelphia "probably going to make some money on this," the actual revenue that is both generated and kept at the local level is "nowhere close to the full amount that would be spent."
“When people are tallying up sort of the benefits of bringing up a big convention like this they tend to count benefits, but not cost, and they tend to ignore things like substitutions," he said.
For example, workers from the suburbs might decide to stay home instead of brave traffic to go to a favorite restaurant, even if it's off the beaten path of the convention crowd. Or a family might decide to change their summer plans once they learn about the convention.
Still, local boosters say they still believe the city will come out ahead in what would otherwise be a slow month for convention business, especially given the lasting impression the city will be able to leave for an international audience.
"You’re at the center stage for three nights for the world," Nick DeBenedictis, a former Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce president who helped work on the 2000 convention, said. "It basically puts you in the big leagues."
A man missing since a pontoon boat crash at the Jersey Shore last summer has turned himself into authorities after allegedly faking his death.
Andrew Biddle, 45, turned up at Atlantic County Superior Court with his attorney on Thursday afternoon to surrender to authorities, Egg Harbor Township police tell NBC10.
The professional boater has been missing since July 20, 2014, when a pontoon boat he was piloting collided with an unlit buoy right off Longport, New Jersey. Biddle and a passenger were thrown into the water. The passenger was found ashore, but Biddle went missing.
Within weeks of the crash, police told NBC10's Ted Greenberg they didn't believe it was an accident and suspected that Biddle was still alive.
Egg Harbor Township police had charged Biddle with several counts of theft by deception months before he disappeared for allegedly defrauding customers during boat sales. They sent out a flier to other law enforcement agencies asking them to be on the lookout for Biddle.
The boat involved in the crash didn't belong to Biddle. Rather, it belonged to a Douglasville, Pennsylvania, couple who say the man and his company stole it from them.
Biddle's attorney Mark Roddy said he's unsure where his client has been since disappearing.
Biddle was arraigned Thursday afternoon and was granted $50,000 bail.
A dog missing for two years has been reunited with her owner thanks to the help of a neighbor, animal control and an unfinished breakfast sandwich.
Annie, a black and tan mixed terrier, was reunited with her owner June Nicolaus this week after disappearing in November 2012. She ran away from her owner's Manchester Township, New Jersey, home three months after being adopted, police said.
Manchester Township Animal Control officers believe Annie survived in the woods near Nicolaus' home for two years before being discovered. Apparently a homeowner had been feeding the dog since June 2014, police said.
But it wasn't until Tuesday when they called animal control. Officer Margaret Dellapietro came to the neighborhood and was able to lure Annie into a cage using a half-eaten breakfast sandwich.
Annie had lost her collar, was dirty and had matted hair, but a microchip allowed Dellapietro to reunite the dog with Nicolaus.
"In the back of my mind, I always held out hope," Nicolaus said in a police release. "Miracles do happen. I was over the moon."
Despite living in the elements for two years, Annie is said to be doing well.
Temple University has suspended head gymnastics coach Aaron Murphy, pending an investigation into violations of athletic department policy.
Murphy will be suspended until the conclusion of the investigation, which will be conducted by the University's athletic department, according to a news release on Tuesday night from Kevin Clark, Temple's Athletic Director.
In the meantime, assistant coach Deirdre Mattocks Bertotti will serve as interim head coach.
This is Murphy's ninth season as head coach. The Owls are hosting the Ken Anderson Memorial Invitational on Saturday.
Montgomery County Sheriff Russell Bono has launched a campaign to collect emergency phones for domestic violence victims.
The Women's Center in Montgomery County received some cellphones earlier in the year thanks to a gift from Bono, and he is holding up on a promise to collect more 9-1-1 phones for the center.
"Many of the Women’s Center’s clients come through our office to have their protection from abuse orders served," Bono said in a statement. "At times, some of those victims will ask for phones because they don't have one of their own."
Cellphones do not need cellular service in order to make emergency calls. They connect to 9-1-1 as long as the phone is powered up and can locate a network of any kind.
You can drop donated phones into a marked containers, like the one seen above, at any of the following locations:
• Montgomery County Courthouse, 2 E. Airy St. Norristown, Pa. (Main St. and Swede St. entrances)
• One Montgomery Plaza security post, 425 Swede St., Norristown, PA.
• Youth Center security post, 54-550 Port Indian Road, Norristown, Pa.
"We just hope to help these victims feel a little safer, knowing that they have a phone to use in an emergency," Bono added.
The star of a popular reality TV show on MTV was one of eight women arrested in a prostitution bust in Delaware.
Valerie Fairman, 21, of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, was arrested Thursday for prostitution and issued a criminal summons pending an appearance in court, police said. Fairman appeared on season 2 of MTV's “16 and Pregnant."
Along with Fairman, Brooke Hatfield, 23, of Wilmington; Stephanie Brown, 26, of Newark, Delaware; Dawn Price, 32, of Newark, Delaware; Jaquya Fairley, 34, of New Castle, Delaware; Lindsey Taylor, 30, of Newark, Delaware; Kristina Weaver, 33, of New Castle, Delaware; and Leslie Larkin, 54, of Wilmington, Delaware, were also arrested in the bust.
The arrests were part of a multi-agency operation initiative targeting prostitution in New Castle County.
Delaware State Police, the Wilmington Police Department and other law enforcement agencies targeted the areas of Maryland Avenue south of Wilmington and New Castle Avenue in New Castle.
The areas were targeted after police received several complaints from citizens reporting prostitution and other crimes.
Information on the suspects' attorneys is not immediately available.
Police arrested two men accused of beating a man with a pipe while he was duct-taped to a chair during a violent home invasion.
Urie Ridgeway, 44, of Mt. Laurel and Willie Hyman, 50, of Wrightstown were arrested and charged with robbery, aggravated assault, terroristic threats, burglary, theft, criminal restraint, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and kidnapping.
Ridgeway and Hyman entered a home through an unsecured door on Chief Massasoit Road in Medford Township, New Jersey back on Feb. 8, police said. Once inside, they allegedly duct-taped the 64-year-old homeowner to a chair, assaulted him and demanded money.
The two men repeatedly beat the man with a pipe or similar object and threatened to return to the home and kill him if he called police, according to investigators.
The suspects then allegedly stole an undetermined amount of cash as well as the man’s 2010 silver Cadillac DTS. Police were later called to the scene and the victim was taken to Virtua Hospital where he was treated for non-life threatening injuries.
After police released composite sketches of the suspects they received several tips and leads from the public. The investigation led detectives to Mount Holly Thursday where they found the stolen Cadillac. Ridgeway was found in the area a short time later and arrested. A warrant was then issued for Hyman's arrest and he was taken into custody Friday.
Both men were lodged into the Burlington County jail in lieu of $350,000 bail.