1st major snowstorm in years: New Yorkers react to 'the big boy coming in'
By
Mark Puleo, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Dec 16, 2020 10:13 PM EDT
|
Updated Dec 17, 2020 5:08 PM EDT
AccuWeather's Dexter Henry was in Poughkeepsie, New York, on Dec. 16, as the state prepared for a major winter storm to slam the area.
It's been years since New York City was dealt the double-digit snowfall amount it was hit with on Wednesday into Thursday as a huge nor'easter blasted the region. Though the city has been close on occasion, not since January 2016 has New York City seen more than 10 inches of snow from a single storm, a number that AccuWeather forecasters said should be easily eclipsed with this week's wintry blast.
And indeed that mark was eclipsed. On Thursday morning, an even 10 inches of accumulation was measured in Central Park, the location where the city's official weather records are tallied. Snow totals varied throughout the city -- a measurement of 10.5 inches was recorded in the Bronx and Manhattan's Greenwich Village checked in with 9 inches.
So how were New Yorkers feeling in the days leading up to the storm? AccuWeather talked with a few people in and around the city and, like everything else in the Big Apple, the responses were diverse.
"It’s terrible because I run a restaurant, we don’t have indoor dining and now we effectively don’t have any outdoor dining either," Tyson Ho, owner of the restaurant Arrogant Swine in Brooklyn, told AccuWeather. "Even if they didn’t restrict it, what cavalier soul is willing to sit in a foot of snow to have a beer," Ho lamented.
The Counter restaurant is closed for indoor dining, Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020, in New York. A ban on indoor dining at New York City restaurants was enacted Monday by officials trying to slow the resurgence of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Ho is a lifelong New York City resident and has worries about what his beloved city might look like in a few days when the snow cleanup begins. The city's responses to smaller storms hasn't given him any confidence.
"I don’t remember too many huge storms," he said. "There’s always the fact that even with the little storms that we get, our government is so incompetent that we’re always screwed anyway," he said. "That’s kind of the question mark right now, given our government’s long history of incompetence and getting us back into operations with small storms. Now with the big boy coming in, we’re all basically screwed, right?"
Fellow resident Omar Reid largely agreed with Ho's perspective, although he moved out of the city a few years ago.
People wait on a line for COVID-19 testing at a CityMD Urgent Care location Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020, in the Forest Hills neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
In a phone call with AccuWeather, Reid shared a memory of being so severely snowed in that it was impossible for him to drive down his one-way road in Jamaica Estates, in the borough of Queens, to get to work. He said plows were slow to reach his area.
"Pretty much overall that was the deal through any of the significant storms," Reid said. "If you live on local streets then those were really the last to get plowed."
On the flip side, former New York City resident Tom Kirby, 42, now lives in Falmouth, Maine, just north of Portland, and is wishing he could get in on the wintry action this week. An avid skier, Kirby was keeping a close eye on the forecast in the hopes that the snow would reach his favorite ski mountains of his new home state.
"I love snow," Kirby told AccuWeather in an email. "My family is full of avid skiers and we wait all year for big storms," he said. "Unfortunately this one is not going to touch the mountains of western Maine so it will be more of a nuisance than a cause for celebration."
Former New York City resident Tom Kirby on the ski slopes. Kirby now lives in Maine and was hoping this storm would pack a bigger snowfall for the mountains there than what is expected.
Of the overall ski season in Maine, Kirby said, "The conditions are starting to get better in the mountains of Maine, but there is a long way to go. This feels like a missed opportunity for the ski mountains of northern New England."
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A father of two, Kirby said he lived in and around New York City for much of his life. In the pandemic era, he added that preparing for the storm has been much easier "since we have been spending so much more time in our homes the last nine months."
In New Jersey, about 22 miles outside of New York City, Ridgewood resident Eliot Choi agreed and said that the shift to remote work has decreased the worrisome variables that come with people trying to travel in riskier conditions.
A pedestrian raise a gloved-hand before his face to block wind-blown snow in lower Manhattan, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019, in New York. The city hasn't seen a double-digit snowfall from a single storm since January of 2016. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
"Our town's school in Ridgewood, New Jersey, just canceled tomorrow's school day and there will not be any virtual class either," Choi, 43, said. "Friday will be an all virtual day to help people stay home in case of any post-storm traffic issues."
He said there were signs that people were taking the snow forecast seriously.
"My wife did go out grocery shopping yesterday and mentioned that the stores were really packed with long lines, so whether it's COVID or a snowstorm, people's need to stock up during these events remains."
In the country's largest city, however, Ho was worried by the lack of preparation he was seeing from fellow residents. While he was at the store stocking up on supplies, he said he was surprised by the seeming lack of urgency.
"I don’t think anyone's prepared, we’re New Yorkers so we’re not good at being prepared for anything," he said with a chuckle. "We were loaded up on salt earlier in the week and I really didn’t see too many people stockpiling on salt or anything. I think we’re going to see a lot of unshoveled sidewalks, especially if the storm is really that big."
Should a massive storm bury the city again like it did years ago, both Ho and Reid said they were worried that some areas wouldn't see the necessary cleanup efforts for days or weeks.
"Obviously Manhattan is always the golden child, so their streets were plowed in a day, but I live in the outer boroughs and run a restaurant in Brooklyn. Given that we’re not the focal point, what's going to happen?" Ho wondered, adding that the city's recent track record with smaller storms was lackluster. "God help us for what the city is going to do for a major one," he said.
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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News / Winter Weather
1st major snowstorm in years: New Yorkers react to 'the big boy coming in'
By Mark Puleo, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Dec 16, 2020 10:13 PM EDT | Updated Dec 17, 2020 5:08 PM EDT
AccuWeather's Dexter Henry was in Poughkeepsie, New York, on Dec. 16, as the state prepared for a major winter storm to slam the area.
It's been years since New York City was dealt the double-digit snowfall amount it was hit with on Wednesday into Thursday as a huge nor'easter blasted the region. Though the city has been close on occasion, not since January 2016 has New York City seen more than 10 inches of snow from a single storm, a number that AccuWeather forecasters said should be easily eclipsed with this week's wintry blast.
And indeed that mark was eclipsed. On Thursday morning, an even 10 inches of accumulation was measured in Central Park, the location where the city's official weather records are tallied. Snow totals varied throughout the city -- a measurement of 10.5 inches was recorded in the Bronx and Manhattan's Greenwich Village checked in with 9 inches.
So how were New Yorkers feeling in the days leading up to the storm? AccuWeather talked with a few people in and around the city and, like everything else in the Big Apple, the responses were diverse.
"It’s terrible because I run a restaurant, we don’t have indoor dining and now we effectively don’t have any outdoor dining either," Tyson Ho, owner of the restaurant Arrogant Swine in Brooklyn, told AccuWeather. "Even if they didn’t restrict it, what cavalier soul is willing to sit in a foot of snow to have a beer," Ho lamented.
The Counter restaurant is closed for indoor dining, Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020, in New York. A ban on indoor dining at New York City restaurants was enacted Monday by officials trying to slow the resurgence of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Ho is a lifelong New York City resident and has worries about what his beloved city might look like in a few days when the snow cleanup begins. The city's responses to smaller storms hasn't given him any confidence.
"I don’t remember too many huge storms," he said. "There’s always the fact that even with the little storms that we get, our government is so incompetent that we’re always screwed anyway," he said. "That’s kind of the question mark right now, given our government’s long history of incompetence and getting us back into operations with small storms. Now with the big boy coming in, we’re all basically screwed, right?"
Fellow resident Omar Reid largely agreed with Ho's perspective, although he moved out of the city a few years ago.
People wait on a line for COVID-19 testing at a CityMD Urgent Care location Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020, in the Forest Hills neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
In a phone call with AccuWeather, Reid shared a memory of being so severely snowed in that it was impossible for him to drive down his one-way road in Jamaica Estates, in the borough of Queens, to get to work. He said plows were slow to reach his area.
"Pretty much overall that was the deal through any of the significant storms," Reid said. "If you live on local streets then those were really the last to get plowed."
On the flip side, former New York City resident Tom Kirby, 42, now lives in Falmouth, Maine, just north of Portland, and is wishing he could get in on the wintry action this week. An avid skier, Kirby was keeping a close eye on the forecast in the hopes that the snow would reach his favorite ski mountains of his new home state.
"I love snow," Kirby told AccuWeather in an email. "My family is full of avid skiers and we wait all year for big storms," he said. "Unfortunately this one is not going to touch the mountains of western Maine so it will be more of a nuisance than a cause for celebration."
Former New York City resident Tom Kirby on the ski slopes. Kirby now lives in Maine and was hoping this storm would pack a bigger snowfall for the mountains there than what is expected.
Of the overall ski season in Maine, Kirby said, "The conditions are starting to get better in the mountains of Maine, but there is a long way to go. This feels like a missed opportunity for the ski mountains of northern New England."
CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP
A father of two, Kirby said he lived in and around New York City for much of his life. In the pandemic era, he added that preparing for the storm has been much easier "since we have been spending so much more time in our homes the last nine months."
In New Jersey, about 22 miles outside of New York City, Ridgewood resident Eliot Choi agreed and said that the shift to remote work has decreased the worrisome variables that come with people trying to travel in riskier conditions.
A pedestrian raise a gloved-hand before his face to block wind-blown snow in lower Manhattan, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019, in New York. The city hasn't seen a double-digit snowfall from a single storm since January of 2016. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
"Our town's school in Ridgewood, New Jersey, just canceled tomorrow's school day and there will not be any virtual class either," Choi, 43, said. "Friday will be an all virtual day to help people stay home in case of any post-storm traffic issues."
He said there were signs that people were taking the snow forecast seriously.
"My wife did go out grocery shopping yesterday and mentioned that the stores were really packed with long lines, so whether it's COVID or a snowstorm, people's need to stock up during these events remains."
In the country's largest city, however, Ho was worried by the lack of preparation he was seeing from fellow residents. While he was at the store stocking up on supplies, he said he was surprised by the seeming lack of urgency.
"I don’t think anyone's prepared, we’re New Yorkers so we’re not good at being prepared for anything," he said with a chuckle. "We were loaded up on salt earlier in the week and I really didn’t see too many people stockpiling on salt or anything. I think we’re going to see a lot of unshoveled sidewalks, especially if the storm is really that big."
Should a massive storm bury the city again like it did years ago, both Ho and Reid said they were worried that some areas wouldn't see the necessary cleanup efforts for days or weeks.
"Obviously Manhattan is always the golden child, so their streets were plowed in a day, but I live in the outer boroughs and run a restaurant in Brooklyn. Given that we’re not the focal point, what's going to happen?" Ho wondered, adding that the city's recent track record with smaller storms was lackluster. "God help us for what the city is going to do for a major one," he said.
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Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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