Big Apple in Crosshairs of Major Blizzard the Day After Christmas

Just as the Christmas holiday winds down and New Yorkers make plans to return to the city, the Big Apple finds itself in the crosshairs of a blizzard moving up the east coast.

The New York tri-state area is expecting up to 17 inches of snow, with the first flurries forecasted to fall around 3:00 am. A blizzard warning will be in effect from 6:00 am Sunday until 6:00 pm Monday. The heaviest snowfall is expected fall Sunday evening, between 8:00 pm and midnight.

Generally, New York City and its residents cope with snowstorms extremely well. The sheer density of people, massive underground public transportation systems, heat retaining concrete and large per capita snow removal budgets make even major snowstorms relatively easy to cope with.

But this one is different. Not so much because of its size, but more because of the timing. While exact statistics are not kept, logic says that hundreds of thousands of New York City area residents were planning to return home on Sunday after visiting family and friends outside of the area.

As of Sunday night, no flights had been canceled into the three area airports, but based on the projected path of the storm, that seemed to be all but inevitable.

While the week between Christmas and New Years tends to be a relatively quiet one, with schools out of session across the city and with businesses often operating on skeleton crews, the fact remains that Monday still represents a back to work day for millions in the New York area, necessitating a trip home for many New Yorkers.

There is still a chance that the storm could move east and spare the Big Apple the brunt of the winds and snow, but on Saturday night, it increasingly appears that New York is staring down the barrel of a major Nor'easter, according to Kristina Pydynowski, an AccuWeather meteorologist.

"A nightmare awaits holiday travelers," Pydynowski said. "Travel will become nearly impossible from Philadelphia northward as the all-out blizzard ensues late Sunday into early Monday morning."

Possibly the silver lining in this for New York City is that with schools out, a sizeable percentage of families have likely decided to stay out of the city for what has become a bit of a holiday week.

But, New York City is in the business of business and tourism, and on Monday morning, Wall Street will open, and early New Year's revelers will descend. The timing and scope of the storm will determine how difficult life will be during the peak hours of this blizzard for New York City residents.

Source:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/12/25/2010-12-25_christmas_storm_heading_towards_new_york_area_south_hit_by_winter_blizzard_snarl.html