Extreme weather observers atop Mount Washington were giddy with excitement Wednesday.

Two record low temperatures had fallen by the wayside, and a third – a 70-year-old record – was expected to topple Thursday night into Friday.

“I’m sure there will be a lot of kindred souls who will wish they could be up there,” said Peter Crane, director of programs for the Mount Washington Observatory.

An Arctic air mass that originated in Siberia streamed over the North Pole and into New England this week, shattering record lows at the observatory Tuesday and Wednesday, said intern Jason Cordeira of Plymouth, N.H.

“It’s very unlike-Florida up here. It’s not every day that you get to experience minus 40 temperatures and 100-mile-per-hour winds. It’s been an experience,” he added. Cordeira has been atop the 6,288-foot-high mountain for three weeks.

Wednesday’s 5 a.m. low of -44 degrees Fahrenheit topped the day’s 1965 record of -38 degrees.

“The weather outside is unreal,” observer Jeff DeRosa said at 3:12 a.m. Wednesday. “Working in temperatures 73 degrees below freezing is one thing, but couple that with the wind, and it has the potential to be a dangerous experience.”

He said the wind chill was approaching 100 degrees below zero.

“Please don’t pay us a visit over the next few days. Conditions do not get much more extreme up here, or anywhere in the world, than they are right now,” DeRosa added.

Tuesday’s low of -41 degrees eclipsed a record of -28 degrees for that day dating back to 1941.

Wind gusts topping 100 mph Tuesday night created “extremely brutal” wind chills of near -80 degrees, said meteorologist Tim Markle.

“The best part is, it is forecasted to get colder and windier within the next 18 hours,” he said Tuesday evening.

Excitement grew Wednesday afternoon among the observatory’s crew of nine because they expect to record a low of -50 degrees sometime Thursday night.

That would topple the state and observatory record of -47 degrees set in 1934 – the same year the observatory recorded the world’s highest wind speed of 231 mph.

While Cordeira didn’t know if the observatory crew would mark the event with any special ceremony, spokeswoman Virginia Moore in North Conway expected the usual to occur.

“It will be major excitement,” she said Wednesday afternoon. “They won’t get any sleep. They’ll be watching the thermometer closely, and they’ll be running outside to experience it.”

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