(Bloomberg News circulated the following article on February 13.)
NEW YORK — New Yorkers faced longer commutes, flight cancellations and train delays this morning after a record weekend snowstorm buried the East Coast from Virginia to Maine.
Yesterday’s “classic nor’easter” blanketed New York City with the heaviest snowfall in its history. About 26.9 inches (68.3 centimeters) fell in New York Central Park, beating a December 1947 single-storm record of 26.4 inches, the National Weather Service said.
New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport and New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport, closed yesterday by the storm, are open today, although many airlines aren’t running on schedule, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Travelers should expect delays and “dozens, if not hundreds of cancellations,” Coleman said in a telephone interview.
Trains on the Long Island Rail Road aren’t running into Penn Station because of drifting snow on the third rail, said Brian Dolan, a spokesman for the commuter railroad. Riders heading into Penn Station must go to Jamaica, Queens, and switch to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway, he said in a telephone interview.
Customers should expect delays of at least 30 minutes, and there’s no service on the railroad’s Hempstead and Port Washington lines, he said. The Long Island Rail Road serves about 100,000 customers during the morning rush hour.
New Jersey Transit trains on the Northeast Corridor are being delayed 20 to 25 minutes, according to announcements made to passengers.
The MTA’s Metro-North, which serves about 125,000 customers each weekday in New York and Connecticut, may have “scattered” 10- to 15-minute delays, and trains may be more crowded than usual because the line reduced the number of cars, said spokeswoman Donna Evans.
“We’re asking people to just budget a little more travel time this morning,” Evans said.
Amtrak today canceled six Acela Express and Metroliner trains and nine regional trains on its Northeast Corridor line, which runs from Boston south to Washington.
`A Mess’
The National Weather Service said that, though the snowfall has mostly ended, roads may be icy and travel will be difficult today. The New York City forecast is for partly cloudy skies with a high temperature of just below freezing at 31 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 0.5 Celsius).
Today “would be a good day to take off, if you have vacation days or something,” Sam Tonuzi, who lives in Hazlet, New Jersey, predicted in an interview yesterday as he shoveled out his car on the corner of 57th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan. “It’s most definitely going to be a mess.”
New York City schools are open today. Hundreds of other districts in the region are closed or opening late.
Temperatures last month across the U.S. averaged about 7 degrees warmer than January 2005, the warmest in 112 years, according to preliminary figures from Weather Trends International, a consulting firm in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania.
New York City had the third warmest January since records started in 1869. The average temperature in Central Park was 41 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) compared with an average of 32 over the past 30 years, according to Chris Vaccaro, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
The weather service said 6 to 12 inches of additional snow may fall today in northern New York state near Lake Ontario.
Elsewhere
In the Washington area, snowfall totals ranged from 5.5 inches to 22.5 inches in Columbia Hills, Maryland, and as much as 21.5 inches fell in Baltimore’s suburbs. About 12 inches of snow fell in Philadelphia. Boston got 13.5 inches, according to the National Weather Service.
No delays were reported today at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport or Dulles International Airport, said Courtney Prebich, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. She said some flights may be late because of snow at their destinations farther north.
The Maryland Transit Administration’s MARC commuter rail system between Baltimore and Washington has delays of as much as 20 minutes because of trees down on southbound lanes between Bowie and Odenton, Maryland, forcing trains to share tracks, according to the agency’s Web site.