Following Sunday’s snowfall of 4- to 8-inches across the Hudson Valley, temperatures will continue to plummet through Wednesday, with “feels-like” temperatures ranging from zero to 25-degrees below zero.

Cold weather advisories have been issued for portions of the Hudson Valley including parts of Columbia, Greene, Ulster and Sullivan counties, from midnight tonight through 10am on Wednesday. Forecasters may expand the cold weather advisory into Wednesday, “due to the recent snow pack and arctic cold air mass overhead.”

Highs on Tuesday will be “bitterly cold” with mountainous terrain locations in the single digits and in the teens for the valley locations. Highs on Wednesday continue to be in the single digits and teens with wind chill “feels-like” temperatures of 5- to 25-degrees below zero.

Here’s a list of warming centers in the Hudson Valley + cold weather tips from the National Weather Service (if you don’t click: Stay inside and keep your pets indoors as much as possible, and bundle up in layers if you must head outside, covering any exposed areas. In adults, warning signs of hypothermia include: Shivering, exhaustion or feeling very tired, confusion, fumbling hands, memory loss, slurred speech, and drowsiness. Signs of frostbite include: A white or grayish-yellow skin area, skin that feels unusually firm or waxy, and numbness.)

During her time, Ruth Ogden Mills, the reserved grand dame of the lavish home that is now the Staatsburgh State Historic Site, was, in fact, a proficient ice skater, perfecting moves not commonly performed 100-plus years ago, including the revered double Philadelphia grapevine. 

In January of 1895, The New York Herald even wrote that, on the ice, Mrs. Ogden Mills was “quite too graceful and proficient.”

Maria Reynolds, present day curator at the Mills’ estate, Staatsburgh State Historic Site, is herself an accomplished figure skater, and a U.S. Figure Skating Gold Medalist. “For me, like it might have been for Ruth Mills, skating is athletic and artistic, allowing one expression through music and dancing.”

On Tuesday, January 21, 2025 at 6pm, Reynolds will explore the popularity of skating during the era, as well as demonstrate the maneuvers of Staatsburg’s former resident Ruth Ogden Mills during the virtual program, “Art On Ice: Gilded Age Figure Skating.” The event is free and open to the public. 

Seed swap in Wappingers, a talk on affordable farmland and conservation in Columbia County, design competition opens in Dutchess, Sounds of Spring at Bard and more:

Please note: Beacon’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parade has been postponed to February 17, 2025 due to Monday’s snow and frigid temperatures.

On this day in 2014, Beacon held its first annual MLK Jr. parade, founded by the late folk icon and fellow activist, Pete Seeger. Seeger, a longtime Beacon resident and lifelong activist, wanted to share his dream of organizing a singing parade in MLK’s honor.

Seeger first performed his version of “We Shall Overcome” for Dr. King on September 2, 1957 during a meeting between civil rights activists in Tennessee (pictured here, along with Rosa Parks). After Dr. King found himself humming the tune in his car later that day, the song became the anthem for the Civil Rights movement. Seeger recalled Dr. King saying at the time: “’We Shall Overcome,’ that song really sticks with you, doesn’t it?”

On January 11 at 3:53 p.m., ten New York State Forest Rangers responded to a call for a subject who had been struck in the head by falling ice at the bottom of Kaaterskill Falls.

Within 20 minutes, rangers were alerted to a second victim injured by the same chunk of ice.

Rangers secured the first subject, a 29-year-old from Brooklyn, in a litter and wheeled her back to Laurel House Road where they were met by a Hunter ambulance. The second subject was able to walk out on their own.

DEC reminds visitors to Kaaterskill Falls, and other winter recreation locations, to use micro spikes for better traction in winter and to be aware of overhead ice dangers.

In case you missed the meeting on Tuesday night, the Germantown Town Board told the town’s waterfront advisory committee that, at this time, “there is not enough data” to support the DEC’s proposal in such a short timeframe. “It sounds great … but it also sounds terrifying,” Deputy Supervisor Austin Sullivan said during the meeting.

Remember? Color out there? Red, red apples fresh off the trees? Getting excited by the weekly changing colors of the leaves?…

Relive the aura of autumn and vote for your (1) favorite photo of Fall in the Hudson Valley submitted by fellow HVNY readers: