SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST.
Shot:
But it does not take a scientist to size up the effects of snowless winters on the children too young to remember the record-setting blizzards of 1996. For them, the pleasures of sledding and snowball fights are as out-of-date as hoop-rolling, and the delight of a snow day off from school is unknown.
‘I bought a sled in ’96 for my daughter,” said Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, a scientist at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. ”It’s been sitting in the stairwell, and hasn’t been used. I used to go sledding all the time. It’s one of my most vivid and pleasant memories as a kid, hauling the sled out to Cunningham Park in Queens.”
Marcella Durand, 32, a poet at the St. Marks Poetry Project in the East Village, remembers burrowing through tunnels and building igloos and snowmen in a snow-buried TriBeCa. ”I really miss the snow,” she said. ”I miss the peace. I miss looking out the windows onto streets with snow falling around the lights, like a special halo. It brought a little bit of peace to the city. It’s the only thing that seems to quiet the city down.”
—“Winter in New York: Something’s Missing; Absence of Snow Upsets Rhythms Of Urban Life and Natural World,” the New York Times, January 15, 2000.
Chaser:
The 26.6 inches of snow that fell in Central Park on Saturday is a one-day record for New York City.
The National Weather Service says the overall accumulation — 26.8 inches — is the second-most for a single storm in city history.
Meteorologist Faye Barthold says all but two-tenths of an inch of the city’s accumulation fell on Saturday, surpassing the previous one-day mark of 24.1 inches on Feb. 12, 2006.
Officials say the total of 26.8 inches that fell in Central Park during the storm is the second-most since officials began keeping snowfall records in 1869. That narrowly misses tying the previous record of 26.9 inches from February 2006.
Snow stopped falling in New York City shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday.
A travel ban keeping non-emergency workers off the roads was lifted early Sunday. Transit officials expect a gradual return of service.
At least 18 deaths have been blamed on the weather.
(Headline via the London Independent in 2000.)
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Just remember, the snow in New York, like the record cold in China right now, is just weather, not climate. It’s only climate when it’s hot. And Fallen Angels is just a science fiction novel.