AFP, Published on Sunday, January 29th, 2023 at 07:32 pm

New York winter conjures up traditional images of Central Park and Times Square draped in white blankets. But not this year.

Despite a recent blizzard that violently hit the north of the state, the metropolis is still waiting for its first snow. A delay that will reach a record 50 years on Sunday!

An unusual situation that upsets the residents who already have a very complicated love/hate relationship with snow.

“It’s really sad,” Anne Hansen, a retired teacher, told AFP. “Normally, we don’t like to see snow coming. But now we are beginning to regret it.”

Nicknamed “The Big Apple”, the metropolis receives its first snowfall on average in mid-December. Last year, it went on till Christmas Eve.

School children and staff then appreciate the “snow days” that are often generously allotted, which allows them to stay home. The kids get out their sleds and the adults get on their cross-country skis, heading to Central Park.

“We stay at home, we drink hot chocolate, the dog loves it,” director Renata Romain told AFP.

But, he quickly adds, “snow is beautiful to look at the first day, but after that it gets dirty, it melts and it gets dirty”.

Meteorologists count snow beginning at 0.1 inch (a quarter of a centimeter) in height in Central Park. So a few isolated flakes are not enough.

In 1973, New Yorkers waited until January 29 for snow, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

If this period were to exceed a Sunday, the expectation would be unequaled since the introduction of depositions in 1869.

New York is also inching closer to its longest streak of consecutive days without snow: a record-breaking 332 days. On Sunday we’ll reach day 326.

“It’s very unusual,” meteorologist Nelson Vaz confirmed to AFP, recalling the recent paradoxical cold spell. In December, a meter of snow fell in Buffalo, in which 39 people died.

But in New York, 600 kilometers to the south, this historic storm froze much of the United States around Christmas, resulting in a lot of rain and unusually high temperatures.

According to Weather.com, you have to go back to 1932 to find a warmer start than January this year.