NEW YORK — Brutal weather has canceled plans for scores of events in the Northeast from New Year’s Eve through New Year’s Day, but not in New York City, where people will start gathering in Times Square up to nine hours before the famous ball drop.

A huge crowd of revelers expected in Times Square for what could be one of the coldest New Year’s Eve ball drops on record.

‘‘Hundreds of thousands have withstood very cold weather over the years for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and we expect this year to be no different,’’ said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance which puts on the event.

The coldest New Year’s Eve in Times Square was recorded in 1917, when it was 1 degree at midnight. This year, the forecast is for 11 degrees with a wind chill around zero, which would tie for second with 1962.

City and state health officials are advising people to cover all exposed skin, and wear a hat, scarf, and gloves. Drinking alcohol is discouraged because it causes the body to lose heat faster.

Extra New York Fire Department personnel are going to be on hand to provide medical support and a National Weather Service meteorologist will be on site with the city’s emergency management officials to monitor weather conditions.

In other areas gripped by the cold, some events are being canceled or reconsidered.

In Philadelphia, officials are taking a wait-and-see approach to whether they should hold the annual New Year’s Day Mummers Parade, which features thousands of performers in colorful costumes adorned with sequins and feathers strutting through the streets.

With temperatures expected to reach only 9 degrees in Springfield, Ill., on Sunday, the organizers of its annual New Year’s Eve fireworks display have decided to postpone this year’s show until a warmer day.

The village of Orchard Park near Buffalo, N.Y., has canceled its New Year’s Eve event because subzero temperatures have been forecast.

‘‘With frigid weather, the chance of a water line break is higher, and I’d rather have my public works crew fixing it than hoisting a ball up to drop,’’ said Mayor Jo Ann Litwin Clinton.

At Long Lake in the heart of New York state’s Adirondack Park, intrepid souls in swimsuits or funny costumes will jump into frigid water through a hole cut by the Fire Department for the fifth annual Polar Plunge, a fund-raiser for High Peaks Hospice.

With temperatures expected to top out around 13 degrees, the rescue squad will be checking participants’ blood pressure and buses will provide warm shelter.

Police are planning a bigger security detail than ever before in Times Square for this year’s New Year’s Eve celebration, which will cap off a year that saw a number of deadly attacks, including a vehicle rampage at the very spot where revelers will ring in 2018.

In addition to its usual army of snipers, bag-inspecting officers and metal detectors, the department this year is relying on help from a growing corps of ‘‘vapor wake’’ dogs, which are trained to sniff out trace amounts of explosive particles that trail behind someone carrying a bomb.

All 125 parking garages in the vicinity of Times Square will be emptied in advance of the celebration and sealed off, so no one has a chance to sneak in a car bomb, police said.

Detectives already have been assigned to all of the dozens of high-rise hotels in the area, with the aim of preventing the type of attack that happened in Las Vegas in October, when a gunman firing from a casino hotel killed dozens of people at an outdoor concert below.

Police wouldn’t discuss whether guests at area hotels would be screened in advance of the celebration, but Police Commissioner James O'Neill said officers already are working with hotel security.

‘‘This is going to be one of the most well-policed, best-protected events at one of the safest venues in the entire world,’’ O'Neill said.

The extra precautions follow two recent terrorist attacks in the city. A man detonated a bomb in the city’s subway system on Dec. 11, injuring only himself. On Halloween, an Islamic State-inspired attacker drove down a bicycle path, killing eight people before he wrecked his truck and was shot by police.

Times Square itself was targeted in May by a man, said by police to be high on drugs, who drove through crowds of pedestrians for more than three blocks, killing an 18-year-old tourist from Michigan.

The speeding vehicle was eventually stopped by one of the squat metal barriers that have been installed around the square’s pedestrian plazas.