Mount Washington temps could break 1885 record at midnight ...

Powerful winds and dangerously cold temperatures on New Hampshire’s Mount Washington could break an almost 140-year-old record between Friday and Saturday as an arctic blast barrels across New England.

The National Weather Service said it expects temperatures to drop to 46 below zero as wind speeds reach over 100 mph and close to 135 mph. Wind chills would have the mountain feel as though it was 100 degrees below zero.

• Read more: Livestream shows Mount Washington summit as wind chill drops to minus 100

“Right now, we’re watching for record low temperatures tonight,” said Justin Arnott, a meteorologist with the weather service’s office in Gray, Maine. “The all-time record – the state record – was 50 below zero (on Jan. 22) 1885.”

Arnott said handwritten records going back to the 1880s documented the mountain’s blistering temperatures. In the “modern era,” as Arnott described, Mount Washington reached minus 47 degrees as wind gusts reached 231 mph on April 12, 1934. At that time, “New Hampshire held the world record for the fastest wind gust ever recorded on the surface of the Earth,” according to the Mount Washington Observatory’s website.

Researchers on the mountain were able to record those gusts in 1934 “and lived to tell about it,” the New England Historical Society said. Conditions on Mount Washington have won it the moniker of the “Home of the World’s Worst Weather.”

• Read more: How to deal with frozen pipes, prevent frostbite during cold snap in Mass.

As the previously-mentioned wind speeds reach over 100 mph, Arnott said the coldest point through the blast could come at around midnight. Hurricane-force winds collide with the peak for over 100 days each year, MassLive previously reported.

“Temperatures will slowly go back upward early morning Saturday,” he continued. “If records are broken or tied regardless of how long it could happen, we’ll see temperatures make their way back up.”

The summit was in whiteout conditions throughout Friday, according to a mountaintop livestream. Temperatures around 3 p.m. were at minus 35 degrees, coupled with consistent winds at 90 mph — past the strength of a Category 1 hurricane, MassLive previously reported.

• Read more:ISO-New England expects normal energy operations despite outage potential

“It’s a one-of-a-kind thing we’re all watching,” Arnott said.