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| This screen grab of a New York City webcam on Friday looked peaceful enough, but some New Yorkers are not handling the toughest winter in recent memory very well. It gets very cold again this weekend. |
As many of us know, almost a foot snow and sleet fell on New York City back on January 25 and it has just sat there. Stubbornly. Daring for people to say mean things about it as it turns gray, yellow, slushy and gross.
Mean things are also being said about the air temperatures, which has been consistently colder than it's been in yeats.
And those mean things are being said.
Egged on by the New York Post, a right wing, Murdoch owned publication, New Yorkers, mostly of MAGA ilk are enraged that snow is still narrowing sidewalks, making parking difficult and is just plain nasty to look at, now that it's been sitting around getting dirty for more than a week.
Trash bags are still out there too, as the sanitation department focused on clearing snow, so some trash pickups were delayed.
All that snow I'm sure is frustrating to New Yorkers. But it's mostly really about the Post and MAGA trying to do anything to take leftie Mayor Zohran Mamdani down a peg. Because he's - gasp! a democratic socialist.
Hizzoner probably hasn't done a perfect job with this winter storm. No mayor would. But from my vantage point, he's done pretty well from what I can see. But what do I know? I'm just a hick from Vermont who has plenty of room to throw snow out of the way if I need to.
The complaints seem to center on the fact that in past big storms the snow disappeared from the streets pretty quickly after big storms.
Which is true.
But the whiners don't seem to understand the concept of thawing.
The temperature in New York has remained near or below freezing since the storm hit on January 25 and 26. Most past storms featured warmer, thawing weather right after the storm.
The complainers point to a 27 inch blizzard on January 23, 2016. That one was more than twice as deep as this year's snowfall, but it disappeared fairly quickly. It was above freezing in New York every day after that snowstorm. It was 47 degrees on January 27, 56 degrees on January 31 and a toasty 60 on February 1
Snow depth fell to just six inches within a week after the storm. By February 2, only a trace remained.
It's not like everybody is complaining. A lot of New Yorkers just say fughetaboutit
On Threads, a New Yorker very reasonably wrote: "All these people talking about yellow snow and dirty snow. Garbage piled up. This is how it has always been after a snowstorm. For decades. It doesn't make it right. It just makes it true. Don't blame Mamdani. Don't blame the MTA. Understand that it takes time to remove snow in a city this size."
Other people got deliciously sarcastic on line:
"After TWO WEEKS there's STILL snow in Central Park, New York City! When will Mamdani get rid of it! Another epic fail!"
The writer made clear this was indeed sarcasm, so other people mockingly piled on poor Mayor Mamdani.
"Why hasn't Mamdani made the temperature go above 40 degrees yet?"
"And when will that monster finally put the leaves back on the trees?"
"Socialism brings snow. Why do you think Russia has so much snow?"
"Snow never existed before he was mayor. He cast a spell to create this thing called snow."
"Wasn't he to blame for the blizzard of '96?"
Mamdani was four years old when the blizzard of 1996, so it of course makes perfect sense that this notorious storm was his fault.
CLEANUP CONTINUES
New York has alternate side parking rules in which people need to park on one side of the street some days, and other side on different days. This allows for street cleaning.
The city suspended the rules after the big snowstorm on January 25-26. But the suspension ends on Super Bowl Sunday - this weekend - and quite a few cars are buried under snow and ice. Those buried cars will need to be moved by then, or there will be towing and serious expenses for those car owners.
It was fairly mild by this winters standards in New York Thursday and Friday which softened the ice encasing the cars a little. That was everybody's last chance to dig out their vehicles. With another intense blast of Arctic cold surging into New York, the ice around those cars is no doubt hard as concrete again. Good luck getting rid of that.
I'm sure there will be plenty more whining when the expensive parking tickets and towing hit on Monday.
NO FERRIES
Ferry service on the Hudson and East Rivers have been suspended for a week and that's not going to change anytime soon. So much ice has built up around Manhattan island that it's too unsafe for ferries to operate.
The ice diminished around Manhattan this week, but it's still there. And those frigid conditions forecast for the weekend mean that you're not going to take the famous Staten Island Ferry or any other ferries for awhile yet if you're around New York.
At least New York is in for a minor break, anyway. After this cold snap clears out, daytime temperatures most of this week will be in the 30s.
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