Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll look at who measures the snow in Central Park. We’ll also get details on developments over the weekend involving two officials who worked in the administration of former Mayor Eric Adams.
When the news anchors and the weather forecasters said that 8.8 inches fell yesterday in Central Park during the day, it’s because of measuring that Lindsay Okarmus did. The 8.8 inches that accumulated from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., from the biggest snowstorm in recent years, did not break any records for Jan. 25. A 10-inch snowfall on that day in 1905 still holds the title, according to the National Weather Service. Where forecasters depend on satellites and computer models. Okarmus has one tool, a long metal measuring stick. She is the director of landscape services for the Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit that manages the park and has been responsible for taking snow readings — and reporting them to the Weather Service — for 11 years. “Six-point-four,” she announced a few minutes before 1 p.m., dipping the measuring stick into wet, woolly snow that had accumulated since her first check of the day six hours earlier. The snow and freezing rain — from a storm that hovered low and reduced the buildings that surround the park to silhouettes in the distance — continued through a bitterly cold day. (Yesterday the Weather Service asked for an additional midafternoon reading while Okarmus was taking a break. Kelli Jordan, the conservancy’s manager of park maintenance, did the reading and called it in.)
Okarmus’s technique is deft: In the out-of-the-way location where the conservancy takes its measurements, she takes care not to plunge the measuring stick into the snow. “There are others who do it differently,” she said, “but I don’t want to shake it and slam into the board on the bottom. That could cause the snow to compact” — and change the measurement. There have been long stretches when the measuring stick hung, unused, on its hook on a wall in a park building that dates to 1900. The city went for 701 days without measurable snow in 2023 and 2024. “When it’s literally a trace or a dusting — a trace is what they officially call it when there’s just a covering that’s not measurable — we still have to call in” to the Weather Service, she said. “It’s still important to the historical record, but it doesn’t make you feel like you’ve contributed that much.”
The conservancy has measured snow in the park since December 2015. Before that, readings were taken at the Central Park Zoo, which weather cognoscenti said was underreporting snow measurements. The Weather Service — which gets temperature, wind and barometric pressure readings from automated equipment near Belvedere Castle in the park — retroactively adjusted the amounts reported from the zoo after three storms, adding 3.3 inches to the seasonal total. Okarmus has a degree from Fordham University in psychology (“I use it every day, working in New York”) but became interested in horticulture on a summer job in Buffalo, her hometown. When she graduated from Fordham, she wanted to stay in New York; she found a gardening job with the conservancy and worked her way up through the ranks. And she loves snow. “I know that’s an opinion not everybody shares,” she said. But snow “makes everybody happy,” Okarmus said, adding, “It seems like dogs are smiling when it’s snowing, and the park, I think, looks the most beautiful when it’s covered in snow.” WEATHER In the morning, a winter storm warning will be in effect; snow and freezing rain are possible. Expect a cloudy day that gradually becomes mostly sunny, with a high near 32. Tonight will be mostly clear with a low around 13. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING Suspended for snow removal. QUOTE OF THE DAY “I just like being in New York.” — Kerry McAuliffe, whose family of five lives on $140,000 a year, on why she hasn’t moved to where life would be more affordable. The latest Metro news
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Over the weekend there were developments involving two officials from former Mayor Eric Adams’s inner circle.
METROPOLITAN DIARY Changing trains
Dear Diary: It was the morning after a snowstorm. The sky was pink, and the weather app warned of black ice and frostbite. Entering the subway at Atlantic Avenue, I listened: 2, 3, 4 and 5, all delayed. I took the R to DeKalb. When we pulled in, the train operator told us that there was a sick passenger and that we should transfer. I got on the B. As I did, a woman started to exit for the R that I had just gotten off. “Is that one good?” she asked. “No,” I said. “Better to stay put.” She sat down, and I stood across from her. The train began to move and then shuddered to a halt. The train operator said there was an unauthorized person on the roadbed. While we waited, the woman complimented a man nearby on his prayer-bead bracelets. She showed her wrist. She was wearing one, too. The train started moving again, bypassing the Grand Street station and creeping slowly into Broadway-Lafayette. “I can see the station!” I exclaimed with glee to my new friends. “It’s our city,” the woman said, standing to get off. “We made it,” the man said, and then took a call in Italian on his phone. As we got off, I said, “In bocca al lupo.” (It’s Italian for good luck, literally “into the wolf’s mouth.”) He smiled. “Brava,” he said. “Crepi.” (“May it die.”) And we went our separate ways. — Gwynneth Malin Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
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