THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT OF PURITANISM:

Videos recorded by the nonprofit Mount Washington Observatory show how the extreme cold and strong winds of more than 100 mph from the Arctic air blast walloped the summit Friday afternoon, and made the mountain with the tallest peak in the Northeast seem like another planet. In fact, the eerie scene atop Mount Washington was slightly colder than the average on Mars this week, according to NASA.

The wind chill at Mount Washington, a 6,228-foot peak known for erratic weather, surpassed the record of minus-102.7 degrees noted in 2004. The observatory had forecast sustained winds of more than 100 mph on Friday night, with gusts around 128 mph.

The Mount Washington Observatory tweeted Friday afternoon that the daily record temperature set in 1963 had been broken and that temperatures were "expected to plunge even lower overnight." And they did just that, dropping to minus-108, according to the National Weather Service. (The Mount Washington Observatory calculated the wind chill at minus-109 degrees.)

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