After nearly two years without any major snowfall, New Yorkers for the second time in a week woke up to a wintry-white scene on Saturday.
The precipitation began overnight Friday, coating Central Park with more than 2 inches of snow by 7 a.m., the National Weather Service said. It continued into Saturday morning, with a few flurries still falling into the early afternoon.
The bands of snow from there pushed away from the city and further east, along the south shore of Long Island, where residents faced threats of snow squalls early Saturday evening.
According to the NWS, snow squalls are “quick intense bursts of snow accompanied by strong gusty winds.” While squalls are short-lived, they come on quick, meaning that conditions can deteriorate rapidly.
Ahead of the weekend snowfall, the NWS issued a winter weather advisory for all of New England, New Jersey, South Westchester, and Long Island an well as New York City. It urged residents to use caution while driving and to keep an eye out for slippery sidewalks before the notice expired around 10 a.m.
“A huge THANK YOU to everyone who heeded the Travel Advisory and kept our city safe, and to the crews who worked tirelessly through the night and this morning,” the NYC Emergency Management said in a post to X.
Temperatures hovered in the low-to-mid 30s throughout the day on Saturday, before plummeting overnight and freezing over the snow-slicked sidewalks.
Temperatures with wind chills in the upper teens were forecast for Sunday morning, but things are slated to warm up slightly as the week progresses.
Snow from Tuesday’s nor’easter didn’t even have a chance to fully melt before the latest round of winter weather.
The storm earlier in the week, which came after a weekend of balmy, spring-like weather, hit the Big Apple with nearly four inches of snow.
The snowfall in the city on Saturday was part of a bigger storm sweeping across the East Coast, which tracked a bit more south than the one that struck earlier in the week.
The fast-moving weather event dumped a ton of snow on Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and southern Pennsylvania, where a winter storm warning was issued late Friday through Saturday morning, according to the NWS. In parts of Maryland and West Virginia, up to 10 inches of snow were in the forecast, with snowfall rates of up to two inches per hour at times, the agency said.
In Philadelphia, residents could see as much as six inches of snow, while D.C. was slated to get between two and five inches.
Parts of New Jersey were walloped by winter weather, with as much as a foot of snow blanketing central parts of the Garden State.
The NWS warned of snow-covered roads and visibility as low as 1/2 to 1 mile, emphasizing the conditions could be dangerous for those traveling.
