January 20, 2014

‘Arctic Outbreak’ to Sweep Into Ithaca

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By MANU RATHORE

As students gear up for first day of classes, they will be facing an “Arctic outbreak” that will bring snow showers and wind chill values of -16 degrees, the National Weather Service announced Monday.

“Cold air impacts such as freezing of poorly insulated pipes, ice jams developing on streams and exposure threats like frostbite and hypothermia will be possible,” the NWS said in its forecast.

Tuesday will be the coldest day of the week, with a high of around 11 degrees, according to the NWS, which added that north winds with speeds of up to 13 mph will drag the wind chill value down to a low of -16 degrees.

Still, despite the harsh weather, fraternities and sororities held rush, the official recruitment process for Greek life at Cornell, this past week. The process –– which will end Tuesday for sororities and Wednesday for fraternities –– was not affected much by the cold temperatures, according to students.

“[Rush] was painful, but at least it wasn’t a blizzard like in previous years,” Kim Lin ’16 said.

Despite the cold weather conditions, students going through the rush process were still eager, according to Vikram Kejariwal ’16, a member of the Delta Phi fraternity.

“[Rush] was just the usual and wasn’t affected by the cold weather. Though it was unusually cold, it didn’t affect anyone,” he said. “In fact, everyone was really enthusiastic about recruitment.”

High chances of snow showers could also potentially affect travel to Ithaca due to snow accumulation of up to half an inch, according to NWS.

Laura Harter ’15, who is from California, said she is “glad that Cornell is staying open, as it would be annoying if it stayed closed” after students travelled back to Ithaca from distant places.

Tanya Moe ’16, who is traveling back from Hong Kong, said she is not looking forward to the cold weather, which will be a big change from the weather in Hong Kong.

“I am really not excited at all about the cold. In fact, I am sort of scared,” she said. “In Hong Kong, the temperature was around 55 de­grees, and people were already wearing down jackets that one would wear in nine degrees in Ithaca.”