Temperatures hovered just above zero Monday as an extreme cold front paralyzed the city and may have led to the death of a man found on the Coney Island boardwalk.
The arctic temps, which approached but did not eclipse a record low for the city in the overnight hours, likely contributed to the man’s demise, police sources said.
Bai-Ping Wen, 77, was found face up on the Coney Island boardwalk near its famous carousel about 7 a.m., when the mercury topped off around the 5-degree mark, the sources said.
Family members confirmed Wen’s identity and told the Daily News he suffered from diabetes.
Wen lived in Coney Island for 15 years, the family said.
“He was on his way home from Chinatown. Every weekend he goes there to see his friends. But he is always home by 5 p.m.,” said his son, Hai Wen.
“We told him not to go this weekend because it was too cold, but he didn’t listen,” said Wen, 45.
He was at a loss to explain how his father died.
“I don’t know what happened. I wish I knew. I’m so sad,” he said.
Bai-Ping Wen was originally from Canton, China, his son said.
Police said Wen was nonresponsive when they discovered him.
“He was found face up by a passerby who called 911. It’s possibly hypothermia, but the (medical examiner) will let us know,” a police source said.
Wen died as the city was in the grip of a bitter cold snap that saw temps plunge to 4 degrees. But a nasty wind chill made it feel like 15 below zero, meteorologists said.
It was a few degrees shy of breaking the city’s record for the coldest Feb. 16 in city history. That record was set in 1888, when the mercury in Central Park was 1, according to the National Weather Service.
Out at JFK airport, the Feb. 16 record was set in 2003, when the thermometer showed a frosty 9 degrees. That record was easily shattered Monday, with recorded temps at 3 degrees. JFK began tracking temps in 1948, the National Weather Service said.
The extreme cold broke a fire sprinkler pipe at a Holiday Inn in the Financial District, forcing the evacuation of 400 rooms around 4 a.m. Guests were forced to walk down the stairs and out into the subzero wind chills, because the building’s elevators were disabled.
“This is not how a hotel in New York should be!” guest Louise Robinson, a visitor from Cape Town, South Africa, told the Daily News after trekking down from the 33rd floor. “People could have been killed.”
Temperatures climbed into the low-teens as the sun reached its midday zenith.
But the high of 19 degrees for Monday won’t last, meteorologists warned.
A snow storm is expected to move in Tuesday that could drop 3 to 5 inches on the region.
The predicted high temperatures of 25 and 28 degrees for Tuesday and Wednesday will give a short reprieve from the near-zero, skin-numbing cold.
But by Thursday, highs again are expected to get no better than the teens: 18 followed by a high of 16 on Friday.
Wind chills on both of those mornings could once again make it feel like 15 below zero.
Temperatures on Thursday night could drop to zero, said Tim Morrin of the National Weather Service.
“The last time we had a zero in Central Park was 1994,” said Morrin. The city narrowly missed breaking that record Sunday night, when it was three degrees.
The average temperature for a normal February day was 42 degrees, he added.
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