Memory is often fragile. In New York many had forgotten the noise of the snowplows and the snow itself, the image of the janitors with colored shovels cleaning the doorways so that no one slips and avoid a lawsuit, the vision of the children heading to school carrying the sledding or playing with white balls or making dolls or drawing on that white blanket that once covered the streets.
Suddenly, the city, with a more tropical climate as time goes by, woke up this Tuesday with that image that seemed to be part of nostalgia. After almost two years, 701 days without snow setting, the city remembered itself. In Central Park, which once again became a Christmas card, just over three centimeters were collected. In some New York neighborhoods up to nine centimeters were expected.
The last time there was a snowfall equivalent to this occurred on February 13, 2022. The previous record without snow reached 400 days and ended on March 21, 1998.
Under normal conditions, Central Park would have up to three feet of snow over the course of a winter. But last year, without much growth at any time, just over five were recorded in every month, the lowest accumulation since this calculation began to be made back in 1869.
The sub-zero temperatures have led to warnings to take caution when driving because patches of ice are expected. More snow is also forecast towards the end of the week.
This snowfall was caused by a low pressure system that left the south of the country and crossed the two Carolinas before reaching the Big Apple.
Much of the United States, practically 80%, is under an arctic cold snap, with heavy snowfall. These days, with the start of the electoral campaign, images of Iowa have been reiterated, with mountains of snow and thermometers reading up to minus 28 degrees Celsius.
But that in Des Moines (Iowa), Chicago (Illinois), Madison (Wisconsin) or Boston (Massachusetts), among other cities, there are significant accumulations of snow is not surprising. On the other hand, the impressive snowfall in a southern city like Nashville is, where temperatures have reached minus 14 degrees, well below even New York.
More than 120 million people are under a weather alert due to the icy winds coming from Canada. It is estimated that there have been five deaths so far from this cause, almost all of them in southern states, unaccustomed to this phenomenon, which, however, is becoming more frequent. Thousands of flights have been canceled or delayed since last weekend. On Sunday alone, 4,000 were postponed and another 1,000 were cancelled.
Other cities on the East Coast, such as Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, have also seen images that seemed almost forgotten recovered, just like in New York.
“It's about time it snowed!” exclaimed a neighbor from Manhattan's Upper West Side as she stepped onto Broadway Avenue to take her dog for a morning walk. There was joy in general. Faustino, who identified himself as such, arrived from Venezuela a few months ago and can feel the snow for the first time. He is delivering food with his bicycle. “This is beautiful,” he says. Its aesthetic impact allows him to forget in principle the hardness that the effect of this situation means for his work.
“The snow still exists,” jokes a young woman near Central Park's Great Lawn. She holds the hand of her son Bastian, who is just over a year old. The baby is happy kicking the snow. His mother takes photos of him. “It's the first time he can enjoy the snow and I want him to have this memory,” she explains. The snowfall is not an exaggeration, it is not one of those storms from other times that led to schools being closed, but it does allow us to affirm that it is winter again in New York.
