Snow piles up as winter blast moves through New York City area

The flakes began falling late Friday in New York City in what was expected to be the biggest snowfall in more than three years in the nation’s largest metropolitan area.

Snow began falling steadily in the city and nearby suburbs in the evening, making driving hazardous. The snowfall eased briefly, just before midnight, but was picking up again overnight, forecasters said.

The storm was expected to drop 2 to 5 inches of snow in New York City and northeast New Jersey, according to an updated National Weather Service forecast issued at 8:23 p.m., lowering earlier projections. Even at the reduced totals, the snowfall would be substantial for an area where hardly a foot of snow has accumulated in some places for three straight winters. In the Lower Hudson Valley and Long Island areas, the weather service predicted 6 to 11 inches. Forecasts called for the snowfall to begin to peak overnight and then taper off early Saturday.

At 8 p.m. the weather service reported accumulations of 3 inches in Somers, New York, in Westchester County; 2.2 inches in Bridgeport, Connecticut; and 1.9 inches in Islip, New York, on Long Island. The totals in New York City were more modest: 0.3 of an inch in Central Park, and 0.1 of an inch at both LaGuardia and Kennedy airports.

Still, the snow was expected to persist through the night at rates of 2 inches an hour or more, suggesting heavy accumulations were still likely. Coming right after Christmas, all that show was complicating one of the year’s busiest travel weekends.

Catalina Martinelli and her parents, Aldo Martinelli and Valeria Doino, were among those affected. Their 8:30 p.m. Delta flight from LaGuardia to Orlando, Florida, had been canceled and the next available one was Monday.

“We have to find where to stay,” said Martinelli, a 22-year-old student from Spain attending college in Vermont, as she and her parents huddled over their phones in the airport’s Terminal C, looking for lodgings. They had already researched train and bus schedules to Florida. “They were all booked,” Martinelli said.

The region was deep in preparation for the expected storm long before the first flakes fell. City and state agencies brined streets and highways with liquid salt and lined up plows for deployment. Airlines canceled flights at LaGuardia and the area’s two other major airports. New Jersey and New York declared states of emergency, and southeastern New York, northern New York, western Connecticut and eastern Pennsylvania were under storm warnings.

In Port Jervis, New York, about an hour and a half northwest of Manhattan on the Delaware River, residents flocked to Berthiaume’s Neversink Lumber Co. to snap up shovels, antifreeze and ice-melting salts. Workers hustled to replenish the quickly dwindling stock.

Steven Drumm, 32, a store employee, was raised in upstate New York and knows winter weather well. His plans were simple: “Plow and then hide.” After that, he said, there would be hot chocolate with his children.

Here’s what to expect as the storm rolls in:

The New York City area was likely to get 5 to 9 inches of snow, with the heaviest concentrations north of the city, along the Hudson River Valley up through central New York, and across central and eastern Long Island, according to the National Weather Service. Some areas could get up to 11 inches.

After beginning Friday afternoon, the storm was expected to reach its heaviest point overnight, with snowfall potentially coming down at 2 inches per hour. The snow should diminish by sunrise Saturday, although light snow was possible until midmorning.

Parts of the region could experience some of their most significant snow totals in years. Last winter, New York City recorded barely over a foot for the season, still an increase from the 7.5 inches the previous winter and the paltry 2.3 inches the winter before that. From February 2022 to January 2024, the city went nearly two full years without meaningful snowfall.

Other parts of the Northeast, including sections of western Pennsylvania, faced the prospect of an intense ice storm starting Friday and extending into Saturday morning. A warning was in place for an area stretching from Erie, Pennsylvania, to the highlands north and east of Pittsburgh, where forecasters warned people to avoid travel.

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said residents “may wish to rearrange travel plans,” and Mayor Eric Adams of New York City urged commuters to avoid driving and to allow extra time when taking public transportation.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said it had been expecting about 15 million travelers to use its airports, bridges and tunnels over the holiday season.

By Friday afternoon, hundreds of scheduled departures and arrivals at the region’s three major airports had been canceled, and hundreds more had been delayed, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. A total of 1,472 flights within, into or out of the United States had been canceled as of 4 p.m.; more than 5,500 had been delayed.

American, Delta, JetBlue, United and other airlines said they would waive change fees for passengers flying into or out of the New York area’s three major airports, as well as Philadelphia International Airport and some smaller Northeast airports. American and United said the waivers would also apply to passengers flying into or out of Boston Logan International Airport.

Disruptions were expected to continue over the weekend. JetBlue Airways, which disproportionately serves the Northeast, has canceled 154 flights scheduled for Saturday, or 15% of its operations, according to FlightAware.

Amtrak had not made major schedule changes by early Friday afternoon. The railroad said it would notify passengers of adjustments via its app, website and on the social media site X.

Drivers should expect treacherous roads and reduced visibility. The New York Thruway Authority urged travelers to use the agency’s mobile app to track real-time traffic information. Motorists may also sign up for TRANSalert emails and follow the agency’s X account for traffic conditions.

In New Jersey, a commercial vehicle restriction for tractor-trailers, recreational vehicles, motorcycles and vehicles with trailers took effect at 3 p.m. on I-78, I-80, I-280, I-287 and Route 440.

Agencies across the city and state were in full-on preparation mode on Friday, well before a single flake had fallen. The city’s emergency management department said Wednesday that it had activated its winter weather emergency plan.

City sanitation workers began laying salt brine on streets and highways at midnight to limit the accumulation of snow and ice. The agency had also lined up more than 700 salt spreaders for roads, highways and bike lanes, a spokesperson said. Plans were in place to deploy the Sanitation Department’s fleet of 2,200 snowplows once 2 inches of snow had fallen.

Outside the city, Hochul said, the state was planning to send out more than 1,600 large plow trucks. During an appearance on WABC, Hochul said she was positioning utility crews in case of power outages and working with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to ensure that outdoor subway lines would be cleared and accessible.

The storm is a potentially final managerial challenge for Adams as his successor, Zohran Mamdani, prepares to take office on Jan. 1.

Snowstorms have long tested mayors, who must coordinate with a bevy of local and state agencies to get the five boroughs’ 300 square miles cleared and functioning for the city’s 8 million residents. Mayoralties have nearly crumbled over the issue.

In 2015, Andrew Cuomo, then the governor, came under fire after ordering the subway closed for the first time in its 110-year history in anticipation of a storm that largely spared the city.

The mayor at the time, Bill de Blasio, drew New Yorkers’ ire the year before for inadequately plowing the Upper East Side, and later, for keeping schools open amid a heavy storm.

His predecessor, Michael Bloomberg was criticized in 2010 for allowing streets outside Manhattan to remain blanketed. And in 1969, John Lindsay’s mayoral administration was nearly brought down by a storm that killed 42 people and injured hundreds more.

On Long Island, Rob Maskin and his 4-year-old daughter exited Southold Hardware with an orange snow saucer on Friday. Maskin said he had called ahead to reserve a sled for fear that the store would sell out.

“It’s her first time sledding,” he said, as his daughter jumped around beside him.

Many residents of the Northeast said they were hardly fazed by the forecast.

“I wasn’t planning on preparing at all,” Asieh Linda Nassehi Javan, 66, said as she inspected a bag of penne in the pasta aisle of the Food Emporium supermarket in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn.

Nearby, on Grand Avenue, Lori Swan, 56, adapted with pleasure in mind.

“I canceled a dinner reservation that was farther away,” she said with a laugh. “We booked one closer instead. That’s it.”

In Allentown, Pennsylvania, Mayor Matt Tuerk said he was ready for whatever came. He recalled a blizzard in 2016, when 32 inches of snow covered the city after the forecast had predicted just 6 inches.

“Our guys treat this very seriously because you never know what’s going to happen,” Tuerk said. “Our guys’ motto is ‘Whatever the weather, we’re out there together.’