New York City’s First Real Winter in a Long Time Is Relentless

New York City’s rhythm is off.

A full week after a punishing storm, the snow has been moved around but not melted, leading to icy streets and sidewalks. Walking must be attempted slowly. Gingerly. Bikes, buses and cars are cautiously creeping along. Day after day, the temperature has stubbornly refused to rise above freezing.

The snow, once pristine and glittering, has become filthy, crunchy in some spots, rock solid in others. The forecast, instead of offering hope, warns of dangerously low wind chills.

The vibes are brutal.

At this point, the leftover snow is hanging around like a guest who has not only stayed way too long at the party but is currently resting with dirty boots up on the furniture, smoking cigarettes and spilling wine on the rug. Rude. We’ve all moved on, why haven’t you? Can’t you take a hint? It’s time for you to go.

New Yorkers pride themselves on being tough, able to withstand anything. But this — this real winter — is wearing thin.

It’s been a long time since New Yorkers had a winter like this. According to the city, at least 16 people have died after being found outside in the days before the storm and the week since.

Monday had been on track to be the 10th consecutive day in which temperatures did not rise above freezing, but at 2 p.m., temperatures on Central Park climbed just above 32 degrees.

The cold snap has not broken a record. In 2018, New York City temperatures remained at or below freezing for 14 days. According to the National Weather Service, the longest stretch of freezing temperatures in Central Park was 16 days, in 1961.

But in recent years, New Yorkers have enjoyed generally milder winters. In 2020 the city was designated a humid subtropical climate zone.

We’re certainly not feeling tropical-adjacent right now. We’re bundled up and walking like zombies, wary of ice and weighed down by thermal layers. Our landscape has been rendered almost unrecognizable, and the temperatures have been low enough to sound like shoe sizes. Ten? Eight?

The Hudson River, usually full of barges and tugboats, is covered in ice floes. You almost expect to see a polar bear float by.

Service on the jaunty little ferries that zip up and down and across the East River has been suspended because of “extreme ice conditions in New York Harbor.” (The Staten Island Ferry, which runs much larger boats, has remained operational, pushing through the ice.)

In Central Park, the coyotes have been walking across Turtle Pond, which is covered in ice. The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir is also iced over, with geese, ducks and gulls huddled on small areas of open water.

Sidewalks are narrower. On some blocks, where the shoveling has been less than thorough, pedestrians must walk single file. Instead of curbs, we have hulking mounds of unmelted snow, dotted with dog droppings. (And never, ever touch yellow snow.) In other areas, snow hills must be scaled just to enter the subway.

Pigeons have gathered near the top of the escalator just inside the entrance to a Q subway station on the Upper East Side, trying to stay warm.

Bus stops look like way stations in the tundra, and the fountain in Bryant Park is a giant icicle.

Snow-melting hot tubs have been dispatched and the city is operating under Code Blue protocols.

Worst of all, it’s unclear when this cold streak will end. Staten Island Chuck, often called the most reliable weather-predicting groundhog in the country, saw his shadow on Monday morning, a prophecy indicating that New York still has six more weeks of winter, at least.

It’s the lingering — an almost aggressive lingering — that makes the deep freeze feel especially merciless. Often, after a big winter storm, New York City gets warmer temperatures, or rain, which helps wash the snow and accumulated crud away.

While the blizzard of 1996 dumped over 20 inches of snow, the accumulation was described by The Times as “unusually fluffy.” A “classic, gradual thaw” followed, creating giant slush puddles.

What we wouldn’t give for signs of melting! Instead, the snow is simply hardening and, now, intermingling with mountains of trash bags.

That said, not everything has come to a standstill.

On Sunday afternoon in the NoLIta neighborhood of Manhattan, as the temperature hovered around 22 degrees with a “feels like” temperature of 5, there was a labored but deliberate busyness afoot.

Swaddled shoppers slalomed around dunes of gray snow. At least 11 people were standing on line outside of Caffe Paradiso on Elizabeth Street, and two dozen more were shivering outside of the Supreme store on Bowery and Spring. Chins were tucked against chests, shoulders were hunched up toward ears, as a numbing wind swept along Broadway.

The relentless bitter weather was summed up succinctly last week by 28-year-old Chris Coro, who was born and raised in Queens and has earned tens of thousands of followers making jokes on social media.

“This is no longer winter,” he wrote. “This is harassment.”

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