Posted on 12/07/2003 4:42:29 AM PST by Jim Noble
The finale of a powerful two-day storm roared across the New York metropolitan area and played out over the Northeast yesterday, burying parts of the region in more than a foot of snow that set a record, slowed travel, challenged Christmas shoppers and transformed the landscape into vistas as uncluttered as early maps of America.
The marathon snowstorm, a 450-mile-wide galaxy swirling counterclockwise on the satellite pictures and a thing of awesome beauty on the ground, was the biggest on record for early December in New York, and it packed the wallop of heavy-duty winter blows more typical of January and February.
Striking two weeks before the onset of winter, the classic Northeaster gathered strength as it drove up the coast, engulfing 12 states from Virginia and Pennsylvania through the Northeast Corridor into New England. At times, snow fell at a rate of more than an inch an hour.
At airports from Washington and Philadelphia to New York and Boston, it whited out runways, forced scores of flight delays and cancellations and snared thousands of travelers. It buried small streets in hundreds of communities, cut visibility and speeds on highways and made travel treacherous and miserable.
Across the region, hundreds of traffic accidents on ice-slicked highways and at least four deaths — two in New Jersey and one each in Connecticut and Pennsylvania — were attributed to the storm.
By evening, accumulations on central Long Island had reached 18 inches, and 20 inches in Thornwood, Westchester County. In New Jersey the snow had reached 15 inches in Newark, 12.5 inches in Passaic County and 13 inches in Bergen County. Baltimore had 5 inches and Philadelphia 11 inches. In Connecticut, Darien had 9, Cos Cob 11.5 and Meriden 9.5 inches. Providence, R.I., reported 10 inches, and New Bedford, Mass., 9.5 inches. Some additional accumulation was expected.
In New York City, the totals for the two-day storm were 16 inches in Riverdale in the Bronx, 12 inches at La Guardia Airport, 12 at Kennedy Airport and 13 inches in Central Park. The park is often used as a microcosm of the city for weather records, and the snowfall there was the greatest for early December since accurate record-keeping began, said Todd Miner, a meteorologist at Pennsylvania State University.
"Since 1900 in New York, there has never been a snowstorm of this magnitude this early," Mr. Miner said. The city's biggest December snowstorm was the two-day blizzard of Dec. 26-27, 1947, he noted.
Daytime temperatures peaked in the 20's across the region, and winds cranked up to 35 miles an hour, with gusts to 50. Ocean winds off Massachusetts and Rhode Island hit 45 to 60 miles an hour, the Coast Guard said. Boaters were warned off.
Getting around the region was difficult at best. By early afternoon, the traffic on many highways in New Jersey and Connecticut, on Long Island and along the Southern Tier of New York had slowed to a crawl. Scores of accidents were reported, but most were minor. Just after 1 p.m., a car heading south on Third Avenue in Brooklyn plunged into the Gowanus Canal, the police said. The couple inside were not seriously hurt and were rescued by firefighters.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said hundreds of flights were canceled — 80 to 90 percent of the airlines' schedules — at La Guardia, Kennedy and Newark Liberty International Airports, and most flights ran three hours late.
Metro-North, the Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit ran trains that were mostly on time, though passenger loads were light, spokesmen said. City subways ran on schedule, but buses had more difficulty, and some were late. Amtrak trains in the Northeast Corridor ran on or close to schedule.
Consolidated Edison reported no power failures in the five boroughs and Westchester. But 200 customers of the Long Island Power Authority lost power, most of them in the Riverhead area of Suffolk County.
Despite the conditions, the snow conjured up a holiday mood for thousands of tourists and shoppers in New York and across the region. Suburban malls and city emporiums were crowded with shoppers, and thousands of sightseers flocked to St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue and Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree and the million lights shining through the falling snow.
The Rockefeller Center ice rink under the gaze of golden Prometheus was filled with skaters, including one agile Santa. They whirled in a great spiral, silver blades flashing on the edge like comets.
Elsewhere in Midtown, crowds coiled at the corners of Macy's and other department stores, sidewalk Santas rang their bells and Christmas music wafted from loudspeakers as people lined up at velvet ropes to see the animated window displays, winking lights, the toys, wreaths and diamond brooches.
Across the Northeast, basketball games, horse racing cards, SAT tests and other events were canceled or postponed. But on Broadway, the shows went on. None were canceled, according to the League of American Theatres and Producers, although some theatergoers were deterred.
In Prospect Park in Brooklyn, joggers, cross-country skiers, sledders and bird-watchers were out in the storm, along with a group of Russians performing aerobic exercises. "The snow makes us happy," said Natalie Vassersteim, 56. "It reminds us of our country and when we were younger."
Kevin Rolwing, 46, on skis and bird-watching at Prospect Lake, noted that the ringbilled gulls were all crouched in formation, facing the wind. "The ruddy ducks are here," he said, surveying the flocks. "The northern shoveler hasn't come in yet."
In Central Park, children frolicked in the drifts with sleds and snowboards, tottering inspirations from Chaplin or Keaton. And in the frail December light there were glimpses of subtle beauty: the dark bare Japanese-print branches looped and netted, snowflakes glittering like jewels in the windy air and in the distance the gray towers of Manhattan brooding like chessmen.
On the park's Sheep Meadow, a dozen men played a fierce football game in the snow. "It's fun," said Ethan Jamron, 23. "And it doesn't hurt if you get tackled."
Along the coasts of New Jersey and Long Island, breakers thundered on the beaches. At Long Beach on Long Island, a few surfers embraced 15-foot waves as high winds blew snow horizontally and seagulls hunched down.
"There's no such thing as bad weather," said David Garfinkel, 43, peering from a hooded wetsuit, his face chapped to the color of raw tuna.
Forecasters had predicted that the first storm of the season would be big, and they were right. It came in two waves. The first struck on Friday with blowing snow that seemed to defy gravity and bullying winds that moaned like Letterkenny banshees. It closed schools early, forced flight cancellations, disrupted highway and rail travel and knocked out power for thousands.
But armies of snowplows and salt spreaders were out around the clock, and an overnight lull in the snowfall allowed time to catch up. Most of New York's major arteries, and the latticework of highways across the metropolitan area, were cleared as the region braced for the sequel, which began at midmorning yesterday and was even more impressive.
Forecasters predicted snow accumulations, by the storm's end, of up to two feet in Massachusetts, 20 inches in Pennsylvania, and 15 inches in Connecticut.
In the city, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg rolled out his own numbers to show how smoothly things were going: 6,000 miles of city roads and highways plowed and sanded, 2,100 sanitation workers on 12-hour shifts pushing 1,924 pieces of equipment, including 1,300 plows and 355 salt spreaders. "The city's open," the mayor declared. "Broadway is open, the movie theaters are open, the restaurants are open."
Buffalo, a city known for bravery in the face of blizzards, was also open. "We got missed," said Kevin O'Hara, a meteorologist.
"It's not that we're gloating," said Gerry Gutauskas, a resident of Hamburg, a Buffalo suburb. "But it's nice to see someone else getting it."
Reporting for this article was contributed by Patrick Healy, Winnie Hu, Michael Luo, Andy Newman, Ann Farmer, Janon Fisher, Colin Moynihan, Michelle O'Donnell, David Staba, Howard O. Stier and Oren Yaniv.
Maybe they're starting to lose hope.
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