Cellphones around the New York region began buzzing with an emergency alert from the National Weather Service at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday: “Snow Squall Warning til 4:15 p.m. EST. Sudden whiteouts. Icy Roads. Slow Down!”
At about 4 p.m., phones were buzzing again: The warning had been extended until 5:30 as the squalls moved quickly across the region, creating potentially dangerous driving conditions in three states.
Just after the second alert was issued, the snow and wind — in gusts of up to 30 miles per hour — were swooping into New York City from the east, turning what had been a chilly, gray day into something more raw as the sunlight quickly faded away.
Among other things, the warnings prompted many people to ask: What is a snow squall?
The National Weather Service describes a snow squall as “an intense short-lived burst of heavy snowfall that leads to a quick reduction in visibilities and is often accompanied by gusty winds.”
On Twitter, Merriam-Webster offered its own definition: “a sudden violent wind often accompanied by rain or snow.”
A time-lapse video posted on Twitter by Brian Stelter of CNN captured the intensity with which the squall hit Manhattan.
The fierce winds and decreased visibility caused arriving flights at Newark Liberty International Airport and La Guardia Airport to be delayed, according to the F.A.A.
By around 4:45 p.m., the squall had blown through New York and was on its way to Long Island, leaving just under a half-inch of snow in Central Park, the National Weather Service said. The snow started at 4:06 and had turned to “just light flurries” by 4:47, the weather service said.
For New York residents accustomed to their phones humming with Amber Alerts about missing children and weather advisories about flash flooding and possible tornadoes, being told to watch out for short, powerful blasts of snow felt like something new.
Sort of.
The warnings issued on Wednesday were only the second and third such alerts to be pushed out in the New York area since the National Weather Service decided that snow squalls posed a serious enough threat to be added last year to the small number of weather events worthy of an emergency alert. (The first squall alert in the New York area was issued in January.)
Michael Gold contributed reporting.
