It was so cold Wednesday that skiers in northern New England were sent indoors to warm up.

Saddleback in Maine and Wildcat in New Hampshire shut down their lifts because of the gusty conditions and extreme cold. Sugarloaf USA opened a few lifts for a couple of hours before shutting down.

Sunday River, Maine’s busiest ski resort, kept a few runs on the lower part of the mountain open for hardy skiers.

Not all skiers and snowboarders were scared off by wind chills of 30 to 40 below zero on some of the mountains.

“Winter comes once a year. If there’s snow on the ground and I have the day off, I’m going no matter what,” said James Krams of Portland, who squeezed in a few hours at Shawnee Peak before it closed.

It was the second consecutive day in which the National Weather Service posted wind chill warnings and advisories.

The temperature hit only 9 or 10 degrees in southern Maine, and parts of northern Maine never climbed above zero. With the wind, it felt like 10 to 20 below in southern Maine and 30 to 40 below in northern Maine.

It has been a prolonged cold snap. The temperature has not risen above freezing in Portland since Jan. 9 or in Caribou since Jan. 1.

And the temperature won’t rise above freezing until perhaps Sunday or Monday, before another wave of cold air arrives, said Art Lester, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Gray.

It was so cold at Sugarloaf USA that Paul Schipper was grateful that the lifts weren’t moving.

Schipper, 79, has skied every day that the resort has been open since 1981 but said the cold is starting to get to him. “I’m petering out but I keep the streak alive.”