The Big White Apple.
The region of the megacity of New York, where millions of inhabitants live, was covered in a thick blanket of snow on Tuesday, especially in the suburbs, causing the closure of schools, administrations and disruptions in transport.
The last snowy episode in New York City dates back to January 16 - which ended 700 days without snow - and the much heavier one on Tuesday was anticipated by the American weather forecast.
Since dawn, “one to two inches (2.5 to 5 cm) of snow per hour has fallen in certain areas of the region” of the New York metropolitan area, particularly in the residential suburbs of the county of Westchester, north of the city, sandwiched between the Atlantic and the Hudson River, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
There is at least 6 inches of snow in places across Westchester.
❄️❄️The #snow has arrived in the city of #NewYork a few hours ago.
The snow cover could reach 25 cm by tomorrow.
pic.twitter.com/QlemTggviC
— La Chaîne Météo (@lachainemeteo) February 13, 2024
The weather forecast predicts that the bad weather will move south, over the city and the Long Island peninsula to the east of the megalopolis.
In Manhattan and Brooklyn, two of New York's five boroughs, the snowfall is currently holding up less well than in the suburbs.
Western suburbs particularly affected
The NWS recommends on its X account (formerly Twitter) that motorists drive “with the greatest caution” or “simply avoid traveling if possible this morning”.
One of the New York airports, LaGuardia, for its part warned on its X account that “the weather conditions were causing disruptions to flights”.
Central Park is dressed in white.
AFP/Yuki Iwamura
The snowpack is even more impressive in the western suburbs on the border of the states of New York and New Jersey, on both sides of the Hudson, where schools, courts and public administrations are also closed and roads almost deserted.
New York City has approximately 8.5 million residents, plus millions more in the northern suburbs of Westchester, western and southern New Jersey, and eastern Long Island.
Heavy snowfall was reported near the New York-New Jersey state border at Northvale.
AFP/Kena Betancur AFP or licensors
At Christmas 2022, the “blizzard of the century” and more than a meter of snow in the north and west of the immense state of New York, largely rural, caused dozens of deaths, particularly in the great town of Buffalo on the Canadian border, hundreds of miles northwest of New York City.
In the United States and the rest of the world, the frequency, intensity, and unpredictability of summer and winter weather are increasing due to climate change.