PORTLAND, MAINE • New Englanders are used to low temperatures, but a combination of extreme cold accompanied by powerful winds is downright dangerous, and enough to send even bundled-up skiers scampering indoors.

It’s that potentially deadly combination that sparked worries as weather forecasters talked about “once-in-a-generation” wind chills in parts of New England.

A powerful arctic blast swept into the U.S. Northeast on Friday, threatening to push temperatures to record lows in many spots, including New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, where the wind chill could drop to minus-110 degrees F., forecasters said.

A National Weather Service advisory said the mass of frigid air would keep temperatures at life-endangering levels through Saturday, warning of “extremely dangerous” conditions from the “short-lived blast.”

New England’s temperature swing is being caused by two things: The blast of Arctic air has reached the region just as a rapid cyclogenesis is developing over Labrador and Newfoundland, churning up powerful winds, said meteorologist Donald Dumont at the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine.

A cyclogenesis refers to an intensification of a cyclone or low-pressure storm system. Those winds mean cold air dipping to nearly 30 below could feel much colder, with wind chills of minus-50 in some spots of the Northeast.

“Those things are leading to this extreme wind chill weather pattern that’s going to be impacting us,” Dumont said.

This sort of extreme cold doesn’t happen all that often, even in the

Northeast.

In Portland, Maine, the wind chill was expected to dip to 40 below. It’ll be the coldest since at least 2016 and could be the coldest since 1981, Dumont said.

The wind chills forecast for late Friday and early Saturday can cause frostbite on exposed skin in just 10 minutes.