We used to make things in this town. Specifically, snow.
Why, there was one year when it snowed 30 inches the day after Christmas! (The mayor at the time was in Bermuda.)
And who could forget the January 2014 storm that dropped 11 inches on the city, and saw the Upper East Side slightly less plowed than other neighborhoods, in what could only be interpreted as a powerful anticapitalist statement from our then-Marxist leader? Al Roker was so pissed!
Hell, there was a time in this city when the snow fell and then refused to leave. Sidewalks stayed slick til late March, and the piles of slush that were pushed into the corners of our streetscape became blackened with car exhaust and littered with refuse, greeting us on our way to work like ghosts warning us that spring would never come.
No more. Those days are over. New York City hasn't seen more than an inch of snow since February 13, 2022. That's 689 days ago. New Yorkers are living in a record snow drought under a mayor who has yet to test his mettle against a genuine snowstorm.
But could that all change this weekend? Headline writers (including this one), knowing how to exploit the hopes and dreams of a long-snowless metropolis, certainly want you to think that it could.
"New York snow forecast: Storm could break record snowless streak," FOX 5 reported, with a heavy emphasis on "could." Accuweather told Patch that "a general six to 12 inches could hit across the East Coast if conditions are right," but their own forecast for New York City is much more conservative: a 42 percent chance (lol) of one to three inches on Sunday night. The National Weather Service is similarly vague, but says there's an 80 percent chance of something wet falling from the sky on Sunday, regardless.
John Homenuk, of New York Metro Weather, is even more cautious. In a video he posted to Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, he pointed out that because the storm is coming from the southwest and not from the east, it will have a warmer air mass that will contend with the colder pocket just north of the city. "The models are suggesting it's going to be a really tight battle between the colder and warmer air," Homenuk said. "We're right on the line between snow and rain." He finished by saying that a blend of the global forecasting models show a 50 percent chance of one inch of snow.
We'll take it.
These links are just falling from the sky, catch them on your tongue!
- Governor Kathy Hochul issued a series of modest proposals on Tuesday to kick off the 2024 legislative session, including banning copayments on insulin. Naturally, health insurance companies are already complaining.
- Don't expect the governor or state lawmakers to do jack shit this year about what New Yorkers say is one of the top problems they face: affordable housing. Stories in the New York Times and Politico detail the confluence of cowardice: It's an election year, so lawmakers don't want to do anything controversial, and last year's failure still stings. And the chief executive whose job it is to solve the housing crisis reportedly wants no part of it. One source told Politico, "The governor has touched the hot oven one too many times and wants nothing to do with housing. She thinks it’s a political loser." I too can think of a "political loser," and their name rhymes with "vocal."
- Queens State Assemblymember and Table of Success-sitter Jenifer Rajkumar is proposing legislation that would allow her friend Eric Adams to shut down 1,500 illegal weed shops.
- Speaker of Mayor Adams, Hizzoner told the press on Tuesday that when he went on FOX 5 and complained about New York's "sanctuary city" status he was actually talking about the "right to shelter." Except, this is bullshit, because Adams specifically referenced Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the TV interview. "We cannot by law tell someone if they come into the city you can't come into the city," Adams told FOX 5. "We can't even turn them over to ICE."
- Mayor Adams has apparently failed to register his Brooklyn apartment as a rental with the City, in violation of the law. This is the same apartment where the mayor spent months trying to cure a rat problem.
- What do Hunter Biden, a fired Staten Island grocery store worker, defamed Georgia election volunteers, and voting machine companies all have in common?
- The City is kicking vendors off of the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian path, and those vendors are pissed.
- Prosecutors say that New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez wasn't just working for the Egyptian government—he was also taking bribes from the Qatari government.
- Wow, paying delivery workers more money…improves their lives?! Who could have foreseen this?
- If your taco truck is closing because of "congestion pricing," you probably didn't have a very good taco truck.
- The Adams administration's budget cuts mean fewer places to put your trash. Surely, New Yorkers will keep walking until they find a can, and not just toss their shit onto the ground!
- Bye bitch!
