An effort to digitize more than 200 Boston Pops radio broadcasts conducted by John Williams from 1979 until 1991 is almost complete. The Boston Symphony Orchestra made the announcement Wednesday, Williams’ 91st birthday. The project to preserve 233 live radio broadcasts recorded on quarter-inch reel-to-reel analog tapes that were becoming increasingly fragile and in danger of chemical deterioration was funded by grants totaling $24,000. The recordings chronicle Williams’ work with guest performers from a broad spectrum of the entertainment industry and many feature the first concert arrangements of many of Williams’ film scores.

The Arctic air that descended on the Northeast has brought dangerously cold sub-zero temperatures and wind chills to the region. That includes a record-setting wind chill of minus 108 degrees Fahrenheit on the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. The Mount Washington Observatory at the peak of the Northeast’s highest mountain, famous for its extreme weather conditions, also recorded an actual temperature of minus 47 and tying an observatory record set in 1934. Across the rest of the region, wind chills — the combined effect of wind and cold air on exposed skin —  dropped to as low as minus 45 to minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday.