New York City’s springlike winter is on track to set a record: the least snowy season on the books.
It’s likely, though by no means guaranteed, that the city will fall short of the lowest total snowfall accumulation since record-keeping began shortly after the Civil War.
The National Weather Service station at Central Park has so far measured just 2.3 inches of snowfall. The previous record, set in the winter of 1972-73, was 2.8 inches. On average, the city sees a little over two feet of snow.
But even with winter technically over, after the spring equinox earlier this week, the snow season doesn’t end for another month. A single decent storm in late March or April could close the gap.
“We’re still in that snow season, even though the window is closing,” said Dominic Ramunni, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “But it’s been a very snowless winter across the tristate area.”
The factors at play in the city’s snow drought include: La Niña, a recurring climate pattern originating in the Pacific Ocean that tends to be associated with less rain and snow in the coastal mid-Atlantic; unseasonably warm weather; and random chance, as storms dodged the city or arrived on a day just a bit too warm for snow to collect on the ground.
Then there’s climate change. The effects of a warming climate on snow are complex, especially given how intensely variable snowfall has always been. A warming climate can increase snowstorm precipitation, and average snowfall has actually gone up in Central Park in recent decades.
But it also means that winters are shortening, and climate scientists warn that climate change could make snowfall even more volatile than normal.
“You can’t pinpoint one specific weather event or even one specific season to climate change,” Mr. Ramunni said. But he added: “I think it’s fair to say a warming climate had an impact on just how mild this winter was.”
If New York City does beat its record, it would be the second notable record blown through this winter; the first was when the city had its latest first snow of the season.
Judah Cohen, a climate scientist at the weather-risk assessment firm Atmospheric and Environmental Research, attributes the low snowfall in no small part to the season’s warmth.
“What’s remarkable has been an incredible lack of cold nights this winter in the East,” he said. Apart from the December freeze caused by the polar vortex, he said, “the lack of really cold air was a more notable departure from normal than even the lack of snow.”
This meteorological winter tied for the second mildest in New York City history, and January was the mildest ever recorded in Central Park, with not a single day below normal.
It’s still possible that New York could get more snow. The city has experienced measurable snow in April just once over the last decade, but that year, 2018, was a bonanza: A snowstorm dropped nearly half a foot.
Calling “no snow” too soon is always a risk. In March 1998, The New York Times wondered about a record-breaking lack of snow, but right after the article ran, New Yorkers were greeted with a five-inch snowstorm.
A late-season storm would be a boon for Marc Manozzi, who runs a snow removal and tree cutting company in the city. He saved up last summer and invested in a new industrial salt spreader, another plow and an assortment of smaller equipment. But halfway through the season, when it became clear there’d be very little to do, he had to tell his crew they might want to look for other work.
“All the accounts I have, they’re by the inch,” he said. “No snow, no money.”
It’s not just New York: Cities up and down I-95, from Boston to Washington, have seen some of their least snowy seasons in the last five decades, and several Northeastern states have experienced some of their warmest winters on the books. It’s been unusually snowless in parts of the Midwest, too, from Cleveland to Chicago to St. Louis.
In a season of extremes, near-record snow has fallen across the Lake Tahoe area; a rare blizzard struck Southern California; a record storm buried Buffalo; and many ski resorts around the country have seen a windfall of snow, even as close to New York City as the Berkshires.
For some New Yorkers, even those who appreciated the relief of not having to navigate days-old snow dirtied by foot traffic, vehicles and animals, this odd winter brought deep unease, as it arrived amid warnings about the rapidly and dangerously changing climate.
Lauren Rodriguez, a new mother, found the warm days made raising a small child in the city, and all the contingencies that entails, a lot easier.
“It’s been nice from a convenience standpoint,” she said. “But it’s kind of scary from an environmental one.”
And there are the sentimental moments — snowball fights, snow angels, hot cocoa during a snowstorm — that will have to wait for next year.
“We fully thought we were going to be able to send him down hills sledding this winter,” she said. “We thought we’d take all these pictures of his first snow. None of that happened.”
Francesca Paris
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