On Monday, New York City surpassed a 50-year-old record for the second longest period of winter without measurable snow this season. Despite seeing flakes fall from the sky multiple times this season, no measurable snow collected or totalled at least 0.1 inch. The city was snow-free for 326 days in a row for the first time on January 29, 1973.
Meteorologists claim it hasn’t snowed in New York City in 326 days, shattering a 50-year record for the longest period without significant winter snowfall, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Based on the records of the National Weather Service, which date back to 1869, the city broke its previous record of snowfall on Sunday. Prior to this, there was no snow until Jan. 29, 1973, when the previous record was set. New York City is also expected to break a record for the “longest streak of consecutive days without measurable snow in New York City”, according to the New York Times. There will be 332 days left in the current record, which will be set on December 15, 2020.
In New York City, the National Weather Service estimates that snow usually falls by mid-December; however, in the past few weeks, New Yorkers have been experiencing rain instead, and last Thursday the temperature reached an unseasonably warm 57 degrees.
Though meteorologists can’t pinpoint a single cause for the lack of snow, the warmer weather affecting cities up and down the East Coast — including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., all of which are also setting records for snowless winters — is due in part to La Nia, according to the Times.
According to the Journal, “we just haven’t been in a favourable pattern for it this year,” said James Tomasini, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in New York.
According to Tomasini, while there have been traces of snow in the NYC region this winter, overall levels have not been sufficient to exceed the measurable snowfall requirement of at least 0.1 inch. Meanwhile, some sections of New York State have had the polar opposite situation, such as the catastrophic winter storm that devastated Buffalo at the end of last year.
