Posted on 02/12/2006 2:42:31 PM PST by conservative in nyc
A record storm blanketed the city in 2 feet of snow on Sunday, stranding tens of thousands of air travelers and sending sanitation workers into overdrive to try to get the streets passable by Monday.
By 1 p.m., the National Weather Service reported that 26.9 inches of snow had fallen in Central Park, the highest tally since records started being kept in 1869. The record was 26.4 inches in December 1947. The snow is measured by the official Central Park measurer for the National Weather Service.
The storm caught some New Yorkers by surprise, coming on the heels of an unusually mild January.
"It's sort of crazy because it was so warm a couple of weeks ago and now we have knee-deep snow," said Skye Drynan, walking her dogs Bella and Forest in lower Manhattan early Sunday.
With visibility at less than a quarter mile, Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged New Yorkers to stay off the roads.
"This is a dangerous storm," Bloomberg said. "Don't drive unless you have to."
The mayor, speaking at a salt storage facility on the Hudson River, said that with 2,200 snow plows and 350 salt spreaders working, he hoped to have all the city's 6,300 miles of streets cleared by Monday's rush hour.
Bloomberg said 2,500 Department of Sanitation employees were working in 12-hour shifts, with vacations and days off canceled, and temporary workers were being hired at $10 an hour to shovel snow.
The storm closed all three of the region's major airports, and airlines canceled more than 500 inbound and departing flights -- 200 each at La Guardia and Newark airports and 120 at Kennedy. The Port Authority said Kennedy could be open by 5:30 p.m., but La Guardia will not open until at least 6 a.m.
(Excerpt) Read more at wcbstv.com ...
I live in Temple Hills, MD... the biggest problem *was* the weight of the snow, particularly on the power lines. Power went out at about 3 AM, and still hadn't come back as of 1:30 PM, when I went to work (the roads are fairly clear, surprisingly)...
the infowarrior
Prayers for your wife's uncle. That's one major unfortunate side effect of the snow.
I saw that on TV, probably The History Channel. Didn't that one kill hundreds of people and paralyze the city for days?
I suppose if it didn't happen 5 minutes ago, nobody remembers it.
"As pretty as it looks, alot of my evergreen trees suffered limb loss from the weight of the snow overnight."
Sorry to read that! We've got absolutely NO snow cover here in southern WI and are going down to sub-zero temps again next week. I've lost three (new this year) pine trees so far, because they don't have any winter insulation.
I'm dreading what my perennial and spring bulb gardens will look like in the spring. It's not going to be pretty. :(
Well, it's obviously either feast or famine. Never seems to be in the middle for we gardeners! ;)
That would be the blizzard of 1888. I understand my grandfather remembered it. He was about 5 at the time.
The days leading up to the blizzard were unseasonably mild, with temperatures in the 40s and 50s along the East Coast. Torrential rains began falling, and on March 12th the rain changed to heavy snow, temperatures plunged, and a ferocious wind began. The storm continued unabated for the next 36 hours. Sources vary, but National Weather service estimated that fifty inches of snow fell in Connecticut and Massachusetts and forty inches covered New York and New Jersey. Winds blew up to 48 miles an hour, creating snowdrifts forty to fifty feet high. The resulting transportation crisis led to the creation of the New York subway, approved in 1894 and begun in 1900.
from Infoplease
Mrs VS
Good to see you have a sense of humor </sarc
Breaking: Climatologists on suicide watch?
this year we have yet to see even one decent snowfall HERE.
True here in Denver. The mountains have been blasted though. They measure snow there in feet.
We lost a couple big branches, one at least 8 inches in diameter. I could have reached that one to rake it - if I knew which one was going to break and IF I wanted to stand under a snow-laden white pine that does this each winter.
Mrs VS
I saw a show on History Channel once about great storms or blizzards and they talked about 1888. People were stranded on the elevated trains and freezing to death. Others were coming along with ladders and charging them 25 to 50 cents to come down the ladder. It was almost a days pay back then.
50 degrees and sunny (!) here in Seattle. Still wish I was trudging through the snow to the Chinese takeout place on 93rd and 3rd (Brooklyn that is!) right now.
This is probably the remnants of the 40 below weather that moved through Poland, Russia, and Alaska the past month.
New Yorkers - gotta love them.
They acted a whole lot better on 9/11, didn't they.
Mrs VS
Probably one of my ancestors with a ladder. ;)
we didn't get anything near that (maybe 8") and already schools here are closed .. and, btw, glad you got safely outta town, hope the conf was fun.
Does anyone know the official snowfall in Southern Fairfield Connecticut...or where to go to find out? I must be looking at 18" - 24" of snow outside.
[The storm caught some New Yorkers by surprise, coming on the heels of an unusually mild January.]
Anyone who is caught by surprise by a February snowstorm in New York is an idiot.
I sure hope the Federal Government and FEMA responded fast enough with the taxpayers' checkbook. I don't think I can stand very much more Katrinaesque WHINING from the DemocRATS and their voter base!!!! Anyone know if FEMA showed up in New York with the bags of ice yet?
we got a foot here near vienna. the main roads are fine but the neighborhoods have not seen a plow near us, so i am guessing that fairfax co. isn't wanting to send school buses into the unplowed neighborhoods.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.