NYC's First Blizzard of 2016 Breaks Snowfall Records

UPDATE, Tuesday, 5 a.m.: Service along the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) has been restored in full this morning, with a few snow-related delays. Check the MTA website for more.

CENTRAL PARK, MANHATTAN — On Saturday, Jan. 23, the National Weather Service (NWS) recorded 26.8 inches of snowfall in New York City’s Central Park.

That comes 0.1 inches short of the February 2006 record for largest accumulation of snow. However, it does set an all-time record — at least since U.S. weather officials began recording this stuff in the 1800s — for largest snowfall in a single day.

In other parts of the city, snowfall totals were even higher. As of late Saturday night, 34 inches had fallen in Jackson Heights, Queens; 30.5 inches had fallen at JFK Airport; 29 inches had fallen in Williamsburg; 27.9 inches had fallen at LaGuardia Airport; and 27 inches had fallen in other parts of Brooklyn. (Fort Greene’s total was a little lower, at 24.5 inches.)

A spokeswoman for the NWS said that because the government doesn’t keep snowfall records for the other boroughs, it was impossible to tell if Saturday’s snowfall set any records outside Central Park.

Early Sunday morning, city crews began tackling the buildup.

By 1 p.m. Sunday, all city roads had been plowed at least once by 2,300 snow plows deployed across NYC, according to Mayor Bill De Blasio.

The mayor announced that alternate side parking would be suspended throughout the city until Monday, Feb. 1, in order to “ensure we can limit any unnecessary traffic so our sanitation crews can do what they do best.”

Cars currently parked adjacent to school in “No Standing - School Hours” zones will also be given a pass until Wednesday, Jan. 27, the mayor said.

Although the ban on car travel was lifted Sunday morning, city officials encouraged drivers to “keep their cars parked, avoid any unnecessary driving, and avoid shoveling snow into the street during storm clean-up.”

Officials also announced that curbside collection of trash and recycling would be suspended on Monday, Jan. 25 — allowing Department of Sanitation crews to focus on snow removal.

All public schools were scheduled to open as usual Monday, according to the NYC Department of Education.

As for public transit:

By Sunday evening, service on all subway lines, both elevated and underground, had been restored, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) was slower to recoup. The MTA announced Monday morning:

The Long Island Rail Road is advising customers that partial train service is now expected to resume at 7 a.m., two hours later than had been planned. As LIRR crews have been working throughout the night to restore service, switches and tracks that had been prepared for service have re-frozen due to unexpected low overnight temperatures.

Serviced will be restored on the Port Washington, Oyster Bay, Port Jefferson, Ronkonkoma, Huntington, Babylon and Greenport Branches. Partial service will also be offered on the Montauk Branch as far as Speonk.

Service remains suspended on Far Rockaway, Hempstead, Long Beach & West Hempstead branches, and east of Speonk on Montauk Branch due to Saturday’s blizzard.

There will be no service between Jamaica Station & Atlantic Terminal. Take LIRR service to Penn Station where tickets will be cross-honored by NYC Transit on ‘2’ & ‘3’ trains to Brooklyn.

Flight cancellations Monday were nowhere near as rampant as they were over the weekend. By 7 a.m., the flight-tracking service FlightAware was reporting 209 canceled flights in and out of LaGuardia Airport, and 61 canceled flights in and out of JFK Airport.