That's a lot for those people.
The first indications of the “bomb cyclone” (as it has been called by people who are responsible for keeping Nielsen ratings and click rates up) were in the National Weather Service’s forecast discussion about a week ago. I like to think that I am the only person who reads the forecast discussion, which is probably not far from the truth. If there is to be some sort of meteorological drama in the offing, I like to be the first to know so that I can extend the period of anticipation as long as possible.
I come from generations of people who do not keep great numbers of open-toed shoes on hand and who become uneasy in the heat. We thrive in the snow. We look forward to it. The cold is perfectly manageable. Heat is inescapable. People figured out fire and wool sweaters about a zillion years ago. It took until 1902 for Willis Carrier to figure out the air conditioner, and even now it’s too expensive to run one. Each day above 80º in the summer is like death itself, but snow is marvelous.
“Chance snow” was, for much of the week leading up to it, the prediction for Friday night and Saturday. There is always a chance of snow this time of year, so this was not a particularly bold projection from the powers that be. In the forecast discussion, though, they were tinkering with differences in models and the potential for a “significant event” from early in the week.
The promise of the storm seemed to seep out of the world of forecast discussions and into the forecast itself by Wednesday night. People started talking about stocking up on groceries. The electric company sent their traditional email about the possibility of power outages. Meteorology had its day in the sun as everyone became an expert in the differences between the GFS and the European model, what a bomb cyclone is, and how terrible it must be.
On Thursday morning, 36 hours before the storm was to arrive, the consensus was that New York could expect between two and twenty inches of snow, which was only a mild upgrade in certainty from “chance snow” earlier in the week. By the time that they got around to issuing a winter storm warning, the window had narrowed to between six inches and a foot.
The snowstorms of my childhood always seemed to arrive with great fanfare, but this was mostly because of the possibility that school might be canceled and I would get to build a snow fort with friends at a time when I would normally be learning algebra under duress. A forecast of between six inches and a foot would carry the hope of a snow day, but not a guarantee. Beyond school being canceled, it would take a snowstorm of apocalyptic proportions to cause any other adjustment to daily life in West Michigan, where changing one’s routine because of the weather is — as it should be — a sign of weakness and moral failure.
Early in the day on Friday in New York, the mayor donned a green jacket from the Department of Sanitation and gave a press conference in front of a great pile of salt downtown. I have never lived in a place where the mayor gives a press conference ahead of a snowstorm. The people of West Michigan understand how snow works and its mayors would never get anything else done if they had to give a speech every time that it snowed. New York, however, has a knack for showmanship and, since many New Yorkers live in apartment buildings in which somebody is employed to clear the sidewalks, more people have time to whip up a national television spectacular for the occasion.
The storm, which was scheduled for 7 p.m. on Friday, arrived a few minutes late. There was terrible excitement at the grocery store at 6:50 and I, swept up in the drama of it all, told the cashier to “get home safely.” “You too,” she said gravely as if we did not live in a city with electric trains that run underground.
The media frenzy seemed to reach my mother by Saturday morning and she started asking for photographs of the snow after the Times sent out a push notification to the whole country: “Snow is pummeling the East Coast, with more than 5 inches in New York City.” To say that five inches of snow can "pummel" a city is a bit much, and to send a picture of five inches of slush to people who live in a place where the sidewalks have become snow canyons by this time of year is very humiliating.
By the middle of the day on Saturday, the people of New York who were not engaged in work had chosen their own destinies. I put on three layers of wool and some leather boots and had a very pleasant afternoon walking most of the length of Central Park, which was stunningly beautiful. At Bethesda Terrace, a group had gathered to sled down a set of stairs compacted with snow. One woman arrived with a piece of sheet metal advertising manicures. She bent it into a toboggan shape and seemed to have a wonderful time.
Meanwhile, the weak, wretched people who own bad shoes stayed inside and watched television, squandering the most beautiful day of the year. I heard the event referred to on one occasion as the "snowpocalypse," which is a narrative that only a person who has never purchased mink oil can cook up.
Nobody has less patience for people who cannot handle winter than my father. When I explained the snow totals to him on the phone, he remarked, “That’s a lot,” and then added a scathing, “for those people.” I had called him to get a refresher on his thoughts on wind chill, which he reminded me was “pseudoscience” and “made up by bored scientists stuck on some arctic expedition in the fifties.” “And it only counts for exposed skin. If you have that much exposed skin or your clothes are wet, you’re going to die anyway.”
These are the remarks of a man who famously has invested in tire chains for the family snowblower, which is the most fearsome snow-moving apparatus on all of Twelfth Street. (The snowblower has only recently ascended to the first place position after Mrs. Tanis — who, to the astonishment of the whole neighborhood, seemingly made it the mission of her retirement to clear the sidewalk in front of her house right down to the concrete using only a shovel every morning — moved away.)
My father and grandfather have both expressed great interest in what New York does with the snow. I explained to them that the Department of Sanitation straps plows to the front of garbage trucks and they tour the city in great convoys, which are an impressive and inspiring sight (especially with this being tax time). This did not answer their question. “What do they do with it? Do they put it in a pile? Dump it in the river?”
In Central Park, the strategy seemed to be one of compaction. People simply walked on top of the snow until paths seemed to form themselves. By the time that I reached Midtown on my long walk, the strategy for the rest of the city had become more clear. Snow is never removed — only moved. Building staff clear the sidewalks and push the snow toward the street using snowblowers and shovels and strange spinning brush apparatuses. Garbage plows push the street snow back toward the sidewalks. In the process, everyone puts down so much salt and moves the snow around so much that it creates a sort of salt-snow slurry.
The real losers in this situation are the cars (and let it not be forgotten that people who drive in Manhattan are always losers), which are parked between the sidewalk and the street and thus become stuck in several feet of salt slush.
I saw one such car on Sixth Avenue, which seemed to tick all of the boxes of a complete lunatic. The car was 1) a completely impractical sports car, 2) was out in weather in which it should not have been out 3) without snow tires, and 4) was being driven in an area with the highest density of subway stations of anywhere in the United States.
Even so, snow seems to soften hard edges in New York, and a small crowd gathered to push the car out of the muck while two garbage plows waited behind it. The crowd broke out in cheers when the car was freed, the driver — having learned nothing — revved his engine obnoxiously, and the garbage plows continued on their appointed rounds.
As a child, a feeling of great forlornness seemed to seep in as a snow day ended — a combination of the disappointing prospect of returning to gray winter normalcy and the feeling of having spent too long at the fair. The same, it seems, is true as an adult -- even on a Saturday. I arrived home as it started to get dark, ate a plate of mozzarella sticks, and fell asleep on the couch.
When I woke up from my nap in the middle of the night, the blacktop was — as the Sanitation Commissioner promised — showing again on 96th Street. A crosstown bus passed by below. There were still chains on the tires.
The National Weather Service’s final verdict was that 8.3 inches of snow had fallen in Central Park. I checked the forecast discussion for signs that a proper storm might be on the way and went to bed.
Distractions
Things I have been reading, watching, and listening to this week.
“NYC Mayor: ‘Reconcile Yourselves With Your God, For All Will Perish In The Tempest’” from the Onion.
A de Blasio era classic, but it still applies.
“Do I Really Need a Toilet?” by Stephen Ruddy in the New York Times.
Today is the last day of “Dry January” for some people, and tomorrow will be the beginning of “No StreetEasy February” for me after I have found that opening the real estate app even briefly sends me into a tailspin of horror and despair as I look at the cost and condition of apartments. (This is not a New York-specific problem — anyone who has moved in this country recently will know “affordable” housing stock in places that are not profoundly depressing is rather wanting.)
Searching for apartments last spring, I was forced to ask, “Do I really need a freezer?” Answer: no. Apartment hunting does something to a person and, days after reading this piece, I don’t have a definitive answer on the toilet question.