New York's fizzer blizzard

The snow plows still haven't
made it to East 74th Street!

I know it has been a long time between posts, but I've been moving out of my apartment and it has been a particularly stressful time.  The whole process has taught me a lot about the ups and downs of NY real estate and I'll definitely share those stories soon.

For now though, the City is recovering from Winter Storm Juno (aka The Blizzard That Wasn't).  Now I lived in Chicago for nearly four years so I'm used to snowy conditions, but today was my very first Snow Day ever, and I made the most of it with a decent sleep-in, hot cups of tea, and generally not moving too far from the sofa.

All the hype yesterday suggested that Winter Storm Juno was going to bring New York City to an utter standstill, and the commute home last night was really awful.  Buses crawled down the road in almost white-out conditions.  Blustering wind whipped up snowflakes so they seemed to be coming from all sides, ending up stinging your eyeballs and freezing your face.  But even though the going was slow and frustrating, as this gallery from Gothamist shows, a snowy City is still a pretty City.

Buildings signs are still covered by a
dusting of white, clean snow

Residents across New York responded to the Mayor's warnings by clearing out supermarket shelves - bread, milk, artisan cheeses, and lots of potato chips and pretzels.  We also seemed to decide that drinking through the storm was a sensible idea, with alcohol sales in New York and Boston up an impressive 477% percent!

As we all emerged from our collective hangover this morning, NYC residents no doubt expected to see a City paralysed by white-out snow, no cabs, and mass transit shut-downs.  The reality was different of course.  

Manhattan still ended up with about 8 inches of snow courtesy of Winter Storm Juno, and the streets were eerily quiet the day after, but the Mayor was right - we dodged a bullet, ending up with only about a third of the snow that was initially forecast.