Records fall as snowflakes in city don’t
New York City records are falling — because snow isn’t.
The city is poised Monday to break a 50-year-old record for the latest day of winter without a measurable snowfall.
Sunday marked New York’s 326th consecutive day without a measurable snowfall, a streak trailing only the 332 days in a row recorded in 2020. If projections hold, New York would set a new record in that category Feb. 5.
“We’re on pace for one of the warmest Januarys in recorded history in New York,” Bob Larson, a senior meteorologist for AccuWeather, told the Daily News.
“It hasn’t been warm the entire winter. You think back to the holidays and how cold it was around Christmastime, but the few times it has gotten cold, there just simply haven’t been any storms . ... It just hasn’t come together. We haven’t had storms at the right time.”
New York has recorded trace amounts of snow this January with a few flakes falling, but the accumulated snowfall never reached a 10th of an inch to meet the “measurable” threshold.
Sunday was another warm day with a high exceeding 50 degrees. Temperatures are expected to dip below freezing later this week — and even drop to single digits Saturday.
Earlier forecasts predicted upcoming storms would coincide with the cold weather and bring snow to New York during the first weekend of February. Those weather systems are now expected to stay south of the tristate area, Larson said.
“I’ve seen projected storm tracks change significantly in the past over a four-day time period, so that’s something to keep in the back of our mind,” Larson said. “But if that doesn’t materialize and it just simply gets colder at the end of the week as we’re confident of now, then it would be cold but no snow. We have a very reasonable shot to break that record of 332 [consecutive days].”
This wouldn’t be New York’s first January without measurable snowfall. January 1890 didn’t even record a trace amount of snow; the city in 1933 and 2008 experienced traces but not enough to be considered measurable.