Adam “Jersey City” Sternbergh out-Sternberghs himself:

Until last May, Cloyd and Herbeck were living in Sunset Park, in Brooklyn, and they were barely making it. They ate mac ‘n’ cheese for dinner. They couldn’t afford to go out with their friends. They wanted a family, but “there was no room in our Brooklyn equation to have kids unless we put them in a closet,” Herbeck says.

Then one night, Herbeck, who’s 30, found herself browsing online listings in Buffalo. (Why Buffalo? She comes from Buffalo. And like many young Buffalonians, she got out as soon as she could.) “We were like, ‘Okay, the prices are great,’” she says. So they looked at some photos. “And we were like, ‘Okay, they’re really nice apartments. They’re really big. And right by the park.’”

And all of a sudden, they found they were staring at a very different what-could-be life: the one they’d be able to have if they were willing to leave New York.

The beach, the free cultural events, the high heat and unrelenting humidity that makes this the greatest of all cities:

If you haven’t installed your air conditioner yet, Friday might be the day to do it.

That’s because New York this weekend will be sweltering through a brutal heat wave, the first of 2008.

Daytime highs will soar above 90 degrees from Saturday to Monday, according to Accuweather.com. And the high humidity will make those afternoons feel as though it’s hotter than 100.

Friday will be seasonable, but a warm front later in the day will leave hot and sticky air behind it.

“The heat will dominate much of the area. Saturday, Sunday and Monday highs in the 90s are likely from midtown to central New Jersey,” said meteorologist Alan Reppert of Accuweather.com.

Reppert said it will stay warm and humid until Wednesday or Thursday.

. . .

And if you’re not a fan of the hot weather, you may be in for a long summer.

“Temperatures are expected to be above normal for the rest of the summer, running about two degrees above normal,” Reppert said.

He who plays “The Heat is On” on the saxophone in winter weather deserves all the locked keys he gets:

Yes he could go down into the subway and find a warmer stage, but sax player Mike Mycadi says the open air fuels his music. “I actually like the cold better than the summertime,” he says. “It’s more challenging.” Part of that challenge is playing with the thick gloves he wears to keep his fingers agile, and he sometimes practices at home with the gloves. Of course, if the outdoor temperature drops below 32 degrees, the concert must come to an end. “Below freezing and the saliva actually locks up in the keys,” he says. And his playlist? “During the winter I like to play warm songs, like ‘The Heat Is On,’ and ‘Summertime.’ During the summer I switch it around and end up playing things like ‘Let it Snow’ and ‘Frosty the Snowman.’”

See also: Saxophones.

Jeez, Doctor Downer:

The widespread havoc wreaked by two major hurricanes in Central America and Mexico in the past two weeks may be making headlines worldwide, but the idea of a similar catastrophe befalling the five boroughs seems as remote as ever for millions of New Yorkers.

But not for Queens College Professor Nicholas Coch.

. . .

So, what is in the cards for Queens and the city, if and when a hurricane strikes?

The city’s Office of Emergency Management has spent hours trying to answer that question in hopes of formulating an evacuation plan.

Under their doomsday scenario, a Category 3 storm would likely begin brewing in late August off the west coast of Africa. There, a cluster of high-pressure weather systems converge and arrange into a dark swirling mass that starts to make its way across the Atlantic along a current of warm tropical water. Perhaps the hurricane roars across the Caribbean, much the way one did late last month. Eventually, it begins churning north.

But it is unclear whether the storm will end up hitting New York on its northbound route. The hurricane has already charted a predictable course along the so-called “Atlantic conveyor belt,” but once it goes farther north than Florida and the Carolinas, it begins moving erratically and picks up speed — making it increasingly difficult to predict exactly where it will land.

“When you’re viewing it from Cape Hatteras (in North Carolina),” Coch says, “you can sit back, sip a gin and tonic and watch the storm move slowly over the ocean.” But by the time it appears to be on a path toward New York, “you’ve got about six hours to get out . . . Otherwise, forget it: You’re gone.”

As the Category 3 hurricane churns its way up the coast, the mayor and OEM officials are meeting to discuss how they will handle a mammoth evacuation. City officials estimate that anywhere from 2.5 million to 3.4 million people will need to leave their homes in a short amount of time, if the storm starts barreling toward the city.

. . .

But OEM’s evacuation plan, deemed inadequate in a report conducted by the New York State Assembly last year, will be put to the test. City officials must figure out how to stretch their resources — 881 public shelters for an estimated 1.4 million evacuees who say they would need public shelter during a major hurricane, according to an Army Corps of Engineers study.

That is, of course, if New Yorkers actually decide to leave. The cumbersome two-tier system of evacuation will deter many residents from evacuating, the state report found. Some 40 percent of people will decide not to leave when they learn they must first report to a reception center before they are brought to a shelter.

Others will stay at their homes, because they don’t fully appreciate the threat, Coch worries. “In this situation, one of the most dangerous things in New York are the New Yorkers and their New Yorker mentality,” he said. “They don’t want to be told to evacuate, because so many people think a hurricane could never hit here. Just couldn’t happen.

“Of course, by the time it does hit, it’ll be too late for them.”

For residents seeking a reception center, the mere task of arriving at the designated centers will be a challenge, since many locations are not accessible by public transportation. And as severe thunderstorms buffet the city, the transit system seems closer than ever to failing amid the inclement weather and sudden influx of fleeing riders.

Residents who do make it to the centers will be faced with yet another obstacle: transportation from the center to a shelter.

The city has dedicated roughly 6,000 school buses to the evacuation effort, though it’s unclear who will drive them, and the simple logistics of appointing drivers to evacuation vehicles hasn’t been worked out. Under the city’s evacuation plan, regular school bus drivers have been designated for the task, although no one has notified them of their responsibilities, and no one knows which city employees could fill their drivers’ seats if and when they don’t show up.

And then there’s this: “Potential Tropical Storm Could Strike NYC”. Yeesh!

They’re not in Kansas anymore:

It took experts until late in the afternoon yesterday to confirm what many in southwestern Brooklyn knew had descended on their neighborhoods as a new workday dawned. It was a tornado — the first to hit Brooklyn since modern record-keeping began — and it turned whole sections of Sunset Park and Bay Ridge upside down.

Roofs were torn off houses. More than 30 families were forced from their homes. Tall trees as thick as men were yanked out by the roots. No one was seriously injured, but cars were turned sideways, awnings and aluminum siding shredded, and countless windows and windshields shattered, in a destructive rain of brick and branch and water that concentrated much of its wrath on 58th Street in Sunset Park.

. . .

The National Weather Service declared the storm a Category 2 tornado on the Enhanced Fujita scale, with winds from 111 to 135 miles an hour. It was the first tornado recorded in Brooklyn since record-keeping began in 1950, said Jeffrey M. Warner, a meteorologist at Pennsylvania State University, and only the sixth recorded in New York City since 1950 and the first since a weak one touched down on Staten Island in 2003.

The Governor fully intends to give the weather the full Sandy Weill treatment:

After a heavy rainstorm crippled the subway system in September 2004, an investigation laid the blame on New York City Transit, saying that the agency had neglected basic maintenance of its drainage system, and that once the tunnels started to fill with water, the response was haphazard and ineffective.

The agency promised major changes.

But yesterday, the subway was paralyzed again, when a strikingly similar storm dropped 1.7 inches of rain on Central Park between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., just before the morning rush.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, with the transportation authority facing an angry public and accusations of incompetence, said yesterday that the measures it had put in place were not enough.

Governor Spitzer gave the Metropolitan Transportation Authority 30 days to come up with a plan to address the chronic flooding problems.

But more importantly, can a steamroller fix the National Weather Service? And can it actually stop global warming?

Elliot G. Sander, the chief executive of the transportation authority, who appeared at a Midtown press conference with the governor, said the torrential rainfall had overwhelmed pumps that routinely move water out of the subway system and had also backed up city sewers, meaning that water pumped out of the subway had nowhere to go.

“The timing and intensity of the storm took us by surprise because it was not predicted by the National Weather Service,” Mr. Sander said.

What happened yesterday was remarkably similar to the events of Sept. 8, 2004, when 1.76 inches of rain fell in Central Park between 6:51 a.m. and 7:51 a.m., according to a report issued by the transportation authority’s inspector general’s office.

The report, issued 18 months after the storm, found that, as in yesterday’s flooding, weather forecasters had not predicted such a heavy rainfall, and that the transit agency had been caught off guard. Authority officials at the time provided the same types of explanations they were offering yesterday, blaming overwhelmed pumps and a city sewer system that could not handle such a large quantity of water.

. . .

In 2004, transit officials referred to the unusually heavy rain that brought the subway system to a halt as “an act of God.” Yesterday, Mr. Sander seemed to hint at a more contemporary, although perhaps no less celestial explanation: climate change.

“We may be dealing with meteorological conditions that are unprecedented,” Mr. Sander said.

Underground this, underground that . . . sometimes you wish they never got rid of the Sixth Avenue El:

Powerful thunderstorms swept through the New York metropolitan area this morning, tearing up trees and damaging cars and creating mayhem during the morning commute.

Subway stations were flooded, forcing commuters out onto the streets and into taxis and buses, bringing traffic in many areas to a standstill. The region’s three major airports — La Guardia, Kennedy and Newark — all reported flight cancellations and delays.

No subway line was unaffected by the heavy rains and winds, according to the M.T.A. For the time being, the M.T.A. was advising commuters to stay at home.

. . .

In Brooklyn, the F train was delayed, and as trains started up again later in the morning, subway cars were heavily overcrowded.

John Han, 50, a financial adviser, said he arrived at the Fort Hamilton stop at around 7:45 a.m., but about an hour later had given up and was going home.

“The cars are running, but real slow,” he said, accompanied by his wife. “It looked like a sardine can. We are going home and taking a shower and going to try again, because we are very sweaty.”

Around Brooklyn, motorists drove in search of an open subway line, so that they could park and take the train.

In Manhattan, the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 lines on the West Side, and the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 lines on the East Side had ceased operations as of 8 a.m.

The 42nd Street shuttle was also suspended. The E and L lines were not in service, as were significant portions of the F and J lines.

Furthermore: Commuters Try To Board A Manhattan-Bound 7 Train YouTube Video, Commuters Try To Board A Manhattan-Bound N Train YouTube Video.

Are we to assume that if the earth’s temperature rises, there will be a related rise in crime? Oh my god, don’t tell Al Gore because he’ll probably get all uppity about that, too:

The NYPD — with an assist from Mother Nature — is putting the freeze on crime across the city and in the subways.

February is on pace to be the safest month on record since the NYPD began tracking crime statistics by month 13 years ago, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told the Daily News yesterday.

. . .

Citywide crime this month through Sunday has fallen 10% compared with the same period last year.

The number of murders is also down to 46 from 75, a 39% drop, the statistics show.

The reduction in overall crime has coincided with an unusually cold stretch of weather: Temperatures have averaged 24.6 degrees, records show.

But Kelly noted this month’s decline in crime followed a similar reduction in January, which was unusually warm.

“We’ve had a recent cold snap,” Kelly said, acknowledging a link between the cold weather and low crime rate. “But the weather was mild for a significant portion of 2007.”

Gary Conte of the National Weather Service, said during the first 18 days of this month, temperatures in Central Park averaged about 9 degrees below normal. Before the last few days, when the mercury crept above 40, the month was on pace to be one of the coldest in 100 years.

“There’s no doubt with the colder temperatures, more people were inside,” Conte said.

The latest incarnation of Staten Island Chuck emerged from his tree stump this morning and did not see his shadow:

Staten Island Chuck, a groundhog with a purpose, crawled out of his cozy tree stump at the Staten Island Zoo this morning and what he saw — or rather didn’t see — means an early spring is in our future.

No shadow, no long winter. The formula is simple.

But after this season’s record-breaking warmth that saw the mercury hit 72 degrees on Jan. 6, Chuck’s prediction this morning before a delighted crowd of kids and their parents — and some high-ranking public figures to make it official — was a no-brainer.

More than 200 children, parents and dignitaries stood under the pavilion at the Staten Island Zoo this morning to watch 10-month-old Charles G. Hogg VII make his first appearance on the big stage.

. . .

Standing beside tuxedo-clad Advance Editor Brian J. Laline, who presided over the ceremony, Councilman Michael McMahon made the announcement as the morning’s first sign of snow flurries began to fall.

“I got it, I got it, Chuck has prognosticated,” McMahon proclaimed. “No shadow — spring is coming.”
. . .

Punxsutawney Phil, Chuck’s chief rival, also did not see his shadow and predicted an early spring.

They’re saying there was a trace of snow yesterday, making this the latest first snowfall on record:

Yesterday, Jan. 10, a date that will live in meteorological history, snow flurries were glimpsed in Central Park for the first time this winter.

The previous record for the latest recorded snowfall was Jan. 4, 1878, when President Rutherford B. Hayes discussed with his Cabinet the possible minting of silver dollars.

The first snow yesterday, a chilly, blustery day, follows a period of unusual warmth throughout the Northeast and especially in New York City. A shift in the jet stream, which carries frigid air from the Arctic Circle, appears to have spared the region the usual winter storms so far, meteorologists say.

For the record, flurries fell in the park at 9:55 a.m., when the temperature was 33 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. It was over in less than 15 minutes. New Jersey got more snow, with Newark Liberty International Airport reporting a total of 0.1 inch.

The mighty horticulturalist union is licking its chops over its good fortune:

Cherry trees in Brooklyn’s Botanic Gardens have hit full bloom months early. Crocuses that shouldn’t be seen until April are flowering, and turtles forgot to hibernate.

With temperatures getting close to 60 degrees yesterday, New York has so far skipped winter — and left nature in a tailspin.

“It is magic out there,” said the garden’s horticulturist Mark Tebbitt.

“In my nine years here, I have never seen this type of growth in winter.”

Snow is another thing New Yorkers haven’t seen this winter, threatening a 115-year-old record for the season’s latest snowfall (Jan. 6, 1892).

The heat wave is over, clearing the way to let us blast the A/C again:

While residents of the region waited for cooler weather to arrive overnight, the human toll of the heat wave became apparent, with at least four deaths linked to the weather: a woman who died after passing out in her Long Island home, a couple who died in their Newark apartment, and a man found unconscious on the Brooklyn waterfront.

Temperatures remained brutal. The National Weather Service reported record highs for the date at La Guardia Airport (99 degrees), Kennedy International Airport (99) and Newark Liberty International Airport (100). Records were also set in Islip, N.Y., at 98 degrees, and Bridgeport, Conn., at 97. The temperature in Central Park reached 96, which was short of a record, and today a high of a mere 85 is expected.

Meanwhile, the city came dangerously close to a widespread blackout:

Consolidated Edison faced its greatest risk of a power failure since the nine-day blackout in western Queens last month, after a series of manhole fires and explosions yesterday morning near Kips Bay and Gramercy Park in Manhattan.

In the two electrical networks that make up that area, high-voltage feeder cables began to fail. In the early afternoon, 7 of 36 were out of action, threatening the power supply to a broad section of the East Side, from 14th to 40th Streets. By nightfall, most of the cables had been fixed.

To take some pressure off its equipment, Con Ed reduced the voltage that customers received by 5 to 8 percent for parts of the day, in all of Brooklyn and Queens and in parts of Manhattan.

The utility took the extraordinary step of taking its own headquarters, at 4 Irving Place near Union Square, off the electrical grid and putting it on generator power, and having crews race door to door on the East Side, urging businesses and residents to shut off power.

The city medical examiner’s office was evacuated because of smoke from a Con Edison transformer that caught fire. It lost electricity for about five hours and had to use emergency generators to keep its refrigerated morgue between 32 and 40 degrees. Several bodies scheduled for autopsies were moved to Queens.

One of those bodies was that of an unidentified man, believed to be in his early 30’s, who had been found unconscious along the piers near the mouth of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. He was pronounced dead at Maimonides Medical Center at 6:40 p.m. on Wednesday. The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said yesterday that the man appeared to be a victim of heat stroke and that alcohol, which worsens dehydration, might have been a factor in his death.

Weather porn, day two:

But as the day dragged on in a hazy trance, the heat made even the seconds pass by in a sluggish torpor: it was a morning and night of a million little miseries, with just as many ways to get through them.

Many seats in New York City summer school sessions were vacant after the city’s announcement that students could stay home. Office workers seeking a cigarette break faced a one-two punch of heat and humidity if they dared venture from cooled lobbies. Observant Jews wrestled with how to deal with a day of fasting that began last night — and prohibits the drinking of water. At Rikers Island, running under generator power, guards, inmates and visitors all sweated.

. . .

Creeping down 58th Street in Woodside, Queens, in his white Ford van, Anthony Ramirez, 35, tilted his head back for a long gulp, downing the last of a bottle of Gatorade. “I’m going to need another one soon,” he said, looking ahead at the traffic, barely moving.

Sweat dripped down the sides of his face, stained the front of his T-shirt and made his arms look as if they had been dunked in a bucket of water. Hot water. “I feel like the devil’s in here,” he said, “It’s murder, I’m telling you.”

What it was, really, inside his van, was 111 degrees, according to a thermometer that toured some of the city’s hottest locations yesterday.

Everywhere in the city people are doing their part by conserving electricity:

Trying to forestall the crippling — and potentially hazardous — effects of the fiercest heat wave of the summer, New York City undertook a range of preventive measures yesterday, from shutting off the colored lights on the Empire State Building, to limiting air-conditioning in the fancy seats of Yankee Stadium, to ordering some municipal buildings, like the Rikers Island jails, to use their generators.

As temperatures around the region reached as high as 100 degrees, and as the heat index, which takes humidity into account, climbed to 113, sweltering New Yorkers sent the daily demand for power to record highs, despite city efforts to conserve. And today’s forecast calls for even hotter weather.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg set in motion an array of plans to help those most at risk. Some 400 “cooling centers” were opened in New York. Public pools stayed open an hour later than usual, until 8 p.m. City hospitals were asked to top off the fuel in their generators, and while there were no reports of fatalities, or even serious injuries, due to the heat, it was unclear what the human cost of the heat wave would be. Across the city, nurses and social workers were sent to visit the homebound elderly.

“This is a very dangerous heat wave,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “It really is more than just uncomfortable. It can seriously threaten your life.”

The city’s biggest employers, including stock exchanges, banks and tobacco companies, heeded requests from Consolidated Edison and the mayor to reduce power consumption by dimming lights and shutting down fountains and some elevators. Some switched to generators to lighten the load on the power grid.

. . .

At Citigroup’s headquarters on Park Avenue, one car in each elevator bank was taken out of service, and the air-conditioning was turned down. The big “Citi” sign atop the company’s tower in Long Island City, Queens, was switched off.

The torch and crown of the Statue of Liberty will remain illuminated so they are visible to pilots, but the lights in its base have been turned off. Thermostats in city buildings were set yesterday at 78 degrees, as they were at the main hall on Ellis Island and in buildings that are part of the sprawling Gateway National Recreation Area. Barry Sullivan, superintendent of the recreation area, said he gave his employees permission to wear “professional-looking shorts and short-sleeved button-down shirts sans ties.”

The AMC Empire 25 movie theater seemed to be following the mayor’s advice last night. What exactly do they think we paid $10.75 for? Movie theaters are the cooling centers of the middle class!

As per the Daily News, the H is O:

The heat will be on today, as temperatures are predicted to soar past the 100-degree mark — setting the stage for one of the hottest days in New York history.

The National Weather Service is calling for record highs of 100 to 105 degrees, which would break today’s record of 100 degrees.

It could even approach the city’s all-time high of 106, set back on July 9, 1936.

Strategies for beating the heat ran the gamut:

Lou Valentine, 68, chose a different way to keep cool yesterday — sitting in the air-conditioned confines of Zachary Taylor’s bar in Kew Gardens, Queens, drinking a Budweiser.

“I’m trying to give my air conditioner a break,” he said. “It’s on 24/7. I can’t buy an air conditioner every day.”

It’s the time of year for weather porn:

New Yorkers are bracing for three straight days of miserable, muggy and potentially deadly heat.

The frying forecast calls for temperatures at Central Park to hit the century mark for the first time since Aug. 9, 2001.

“To avoid heat exhaustion and heatstroke, New Yorkers should take necessary precautions, including staying out of the sun, avoiding strenuous activity, especially during the hottest part of the day,” Mayor Bloomberg said as he declared a heat emergency for the city.

The merciless mercury is expected to hit 100 today and 102 tomorrow at Central Park.

“We’re looking to either tie or break records over the next two days,” said meteorologist Joe Pollina of the National Weather Service.

Yesterday’s 90-degree high is just a warmup. If predictions hold, today’s heat at Central Park will tie a record set in 1933, and tomorrow’s scorcher will top a 51-year-old record.

Throw in the high humidity and it will feel like 110 to 115 for the next two days. By Thursday, thermometers at the park should drop to a comparatively cool 95.

In Staten Island, where temperatures reached 104 degrees yesterday, a group of toughs took out their frustrations on the local populace:

Tempers boiled over yesterday along with the mercury — it hit 104 degrees in the borough on the third day of summer’s first heat wave — as a rowdy crowd pushed a peace officer into a public pool in Mariners Harbor and then attacked a baseball player on a field nearby.

The trouble started at about 5:30 p.m., as about 50 young people descended on the Grandview Playground mini-pool, located at Grandview Avenue and Continental Place, not far from the Mariners Harbor Houses. The youths were in street clothes and were too old for the mini-pool, said Warner Johnston, a Parks Department spokesman.

A Parks Enforcement Patrol officer confronted the rambunctious bunch, only to find herself being pushed into the pool, police said.

Apart from getting wet, the officer was uninjured, Johnston noted.

About 15 minutes later, the same group disrupted a men’s sandlot baseball game between the Tigers and Danny Boy’s Tavern that was getting under way on a field nearby.

The right fielder was doused with a pot full of water thrown by a teen-ager, who then hit the player with the empty pot, according to witnesses. The player was banged up but didn’t go to a hospital, they said.

The game was promptly canceled.

A massive water fight then ensued at the intersection of Continental Place and Brabant Avenue, with folks filling buckets, pots, pans and their hands from an illegally opened fire hydrant.

Cops quickly swarmed the area to disperse the group and firefighters were called in to shut off the hydrant.

It was so hot that we couldn’t help but read about it the following day:

On a day when the mercury climbed to 95 at Central Park and 99 at LaGuardia Airport, city dwellers dealt with blackouts in some spots, stalled subways and canceled flights.

“Where I live I can’t go to the pool because it’s so packed,” said lower East Sider Jennifer Osorio, 30, who trekked all the way to Harlem to take a dip.

There were so many swimmers at the pool at Tompkins Square Park on Avenue A that lifeguards were rotating them in and out of the water every 20 minutes.

And at Coney Island yesterday, bathers griped about all the trash strewn on the beach after a weekend that saw 1.7 million people flock to Brooklyn’s sandy cool spot.

“I picked up two hypodermic needles,” said Carol O’Donnell of Brooklyn, who took her 8-year-old granddaughter, Kara, to the famed beach.

City officials said the mess was due to five of the 23 giant beachcomber machines breaking down.

Residents and business owners staying inside under air conditioners consumed 12,869 megawatts of power, the second-highest figure in city history.

The power drain sparked a blackout at LaGuardia Airport, prompting Delta and American Airlines to cancel flights between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

The 1, 2, 3, V and W trains were either stalled or diverted because of lost signal power between 9:16 a.m. and 10:59 a.m.

The city Emergency Medical Service saw heat-related calls spike from a normal of two a day to 42 yesterday.

In Astoria, Queens, 470 Con Edison customers were left in the dark, and 3,500 more were without juice in Westchester.

As manhole covers exploded and power lines caught fire, Michael Hardy of Astoria sat in his car with the air conditioning on. “I can’t get air conditioning inside my apartment,” he explained.

It’s so hot that the third rail on the A train buckled. No, seriously:

Temperatures reached 95 degrees in Central Park yesterday afternoon. That may not be a record for New York City — temperatures soared to 106 degrees in Central Park on July 9, 1936 — but the National Weather Service still deemed yesterday worthy of a heat advisory for the region, warning that heat and humidity would make temperatures feel above 100 degrees.

Today may feel worse: forecasters said that temperatures could reach 100 degrees near La Guardia Airport and in Newark, and Central Park may sauté in the upper 90’s.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said to help residents cope, especially those who did not have air-conditioning, the city set up more than 300 cooling stations — schools or city offices with ample air-conditioning and cold water.

The hours for 51 public swimming pools were extended, he said, remaining open an extra hour until 8 p.m., and spray showers in parks and playgrounds remained open until sunset.

. . .

A Manhattan-bound A train came to a halt at 12:45 p.m., shortly after it left the Beach 67th Street station in the Rockaways, when its electrified third rail buckled from the heat. About 70 passengers remained on the train until about 2:30 p.m., when they were led several hundred feet along the tracks to an intersection where they made their way to the street, said Deirdre Parker, a spokeswoman for New York City Transit.

The Post report makes it sound absolutely totally utterly horrible:

While no injuries were reported, passengers were furious with MTA, saying the workers could have gotten them off a lot faster instead of allowing them to roast in cars until 3 p.m. with no air conditioning.

Transit officials said the passengers were on the train for so long because the MTA first planned to send a rescue train to pick them up. But that plan was scrapped, and they walked everybody off.

“They brought all the people into three cars and then opened the doors so they would have fresh air and to make sure they were safe,” a transit spokesman explained.

In other words, the only thing worse than being stuck on an unairconditioned train is being crammed into only three cars of a stuck unairconditioned train.

The Daily News joins in the fear mongering, showing us how in the event of a strong hurricane, the entire Rockaway peninsula could be toast:

Disaster is brewing in the Rockaways.

More than 100,000 people live on an 11-mile spit of sand with just three routes to the mainland. A moderate hurricane would cover the peninsula with water — and a heavy one would obliterate everything.

But even as the city’s emergency planners are practicing how to evacuate the Rockaways to save lives, city housing officials are eagerly pushing plans to build almost 4,000 new homes there — right in the path of coastal storms.

“It’s insane,” said Queens College Prof. Nicholas Coch, a nationally recognized hurricane expert. “People who live in Rockaways are really playing roulette with Mother Nature.”

Hundreds of upscale homes, priced higher than $500,000, already have been built at Arverne by the Sea, an $800 million development on land that had lain fallow for decades.

Demand is strong and the city Housing Preservation and Development Department envisions thousands more homes rising nearby — thanks to the allure of New York’s last undeveloped beachfront property.

“People are only as smart as their collective memories,” said John Lepore, head of the local Chamber of Commerce. “There’s not been major, major storms for a while, and people have become affluent, and everybody wants to live near the water.”

New Yorkers generally don’t think of their city as vulnerable to the kind of deadly storms that hit New Orleans, Miami or Houston. But experts say the city has been thrashed before — and is coming due for another devastating storm.

“Why do we forget our own history?” Coch asked. “We have a major development in an area where history has shown that hurricanes have done tremendous damage.”

An 1893 hurricane destroyed homes and hotels along the south-facing coast of the Rockaways, and subsequent storms reshaped sandbars and inlets of the area. A 1938 hurricane that ravaged Long Island swamped stretches of the Rockaways.

The Russian-language press is stirring up fears of a catastrophic hurricane hitting Brighton Beach:

Russian immigrants in Brighton Beach are living in fear of a hurricane threat to which the rest of New York City seems largely oblivious. Speculation that a severe storm could soon descend on Brooklyn has been rife among immigrant senior citizens, many of whom are reportedly stocking up on water and medicine in preparation for an emergency that is much less likely to happen than some of the local Russian press and broadcast outlets have reported.

. . .

“I know one businessman who closed his business,” the editor in chief of a local paper, Russkii Bazaar, Natalia Shapiro, said. “He went back to live in Russia until the hurricane season is over.”

Employees at Pharmacy Express on Brighton Beach Avenue said that in May, senior citizens started coming in saying they were worried about a hurricane. “People read the Russian-language newspapers, and they believe every word,” a pharmacist, Tatiana Shmaian, said. Ms. Shmaian said her daughter lives in Moscow and called her to make sure she was okay after hearing about a potential hurricane on Russian television.

“They’re hearing there’s going to be a hurricane in 24 hours,” Pat Singer of the Brighton Neighborhood Association said. Ms. Singer said senior citizens have come into her office and asked what they should do if the city declares a weather-related evacuation. “They’re old, they can’t run, and they’re scared,” she said. “Katrina scared a lot of people.”

Ms. Singer, who cannot read Russian, blamed the local Russian newspapers for the speculation, saying editors are trying to scare their readers in order to boost sales. “It’s a ghetto, a Russian ghetto neighborhood. They read their own newsletters, watch their own television stations,” she said.

The scare appears to have started in March, when several Russian-language newspapers in America published a re port that said: “In the coming summer, a powerful hurricane could descend on New York with a force no less forgiving than Katrina, which emptied New Orleans last year.” That warning also was picked up by news sources in Russia. Then, at the end of last month, the New York Russian paper V Novom Svete ran a cover story citing a French scientist who said a tsunami would rip through Manhattan on May 25.

Then again, the prospect of a hurricane hitting New York does seem pretty frightening . . .

Holy shit, it’s like 70 degrees today:

The lamb has arrived early with temperatures reaching a record-breaking 72 degrees in Central Park. The old record of 71 was set in 1955.

“I usually take the bus [to work], because I work on the East Side and live on the West Side. But since it was so warm I decided to walk,” said one New Yorker enjoying the weather.

Others walked their dogs, who also seemed to enjoy the spring scent in the air.

I saw dogs sniffing around, too, but unless I’m mistaken about what was on my leg, it wasn’t clear they were after any sort of spring scent.

A “small but influential clan” of fashion-conscious New Yorkers are avoiding watching the weather, confounding — and making rich — clothes designers everywhere:

House keys? Check. Cellphone? Check. Last minute consult with weatherman. Er . . . In planning her day, Melissa Briskman did give the weather a cursory thought. “Before leaving the house I stuck my head out the window,” said Ms. Briskman, an actress and English teacher, who shivered perceptibly as she waited outside Cafe Gitane on Mott Street on Saturday.

Her only defense against the wicked storm forecast for that day was the light wool coat she had pulled halfheartedly over a tissue-weight tunic and leggings. “I just wear what I want to wear when I want to wear it,” she said, “and I make it work.”

Earlier in the week Patricia Black, the director of a fashion showroom in New York, just as determinedly blew winter a raspberry. Ms. Black arrived at work in a summery dress of white cotton eyelet. “I knew it was awfully cold out,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘Oh, maybe this dress would be a little breath of springtime in February.’”

Ms. Briskman and Ms. Black are members of a small but influential clan of New Yorkers, mostly young, who in a week when temperatures plunged to the 20’s ignored sullen skies and stinging winds and, along with them, conventional notions of dressing for the season. Sure, some wore leggings, granddaddy sweaters, chunky boots and jeans, but mainly to set off their filmy tops and flowery dresses.

A Sun reporter does a stint as one of the city’s emergency snow laborers and files this report:

The work isn’t steady or easy, but it beats minimum wage by $3.25. Several laborers confided to me that they didn’t think it was much of a sacrifice to give up comfort and the integrity of their lower back for that wage. “That’s a lot of money,” one told me.

. . .

The job is fairly simple: Clear out the areas near fire hydrants, bus stops, drains, and intersections; throw the snow into the street and let it melt. A supervisor from the Sanitation Enforcement unit of the department hovers in the background, occasionally grabbing a shovel to help out, and keeping the van in proximity to the crew — mine included small-time cigarette hustlers, maintenance workers, and elevator repairmen.

Before we headed out, we met at a giant sanitation garage full of trucks. Light filtered through pale yellow windowpanes. Ray, who lives in the nearby housing projects, was the first one there. A jack of all trades, he works as a busboy, dishwasher, factory worker, and part-time laborer, among other jobs. “I do whatever’s available,” he said, showing a cracked tooth.

To get on the list for the much coveted snow jobs, you have to be in line as early as 7:30 a.m. (7 a.m. on busy days). A grumpy sanitation administrator named Willie takes down names and doles out the jobs. In theory, if a laborer puts in 40 hours, he gets a raise to $15 an hour. This is nearly impossible, though, because Willie gives out jobs to newcomers first and veterans second. Several old-time snow laborers said this wasn’t the case last year. At eight hours of wages, the city spent about $41,000 on the 512 extra workers yesterday. The storm could end up costing the city more than $100,000 in emergency snow labor.

. . .

At first, the work was easy and almost fun. There was a pleasure in the immediacy of the progress. It’s all right in front of you: a cleared path, an unburied hydrant, or slush going down the drain. But it quickly becomes clear that this is a thankless job. Several times young women with large sunglasses rudely interjected “Excuse me” as we shoveled and scraped — as if we were being selfish by taking up part of the sidewalk. A few passers-by smiled, but it seemed like it was mostly out of awkwardness in having encountered our ragtag clean-up crew.

At every corner my squad members razzed each other and the attractive women that walked by. When you carry a shovel and are working for the city, you can’t help but have a bit of a swagger.

“Strawberry daiquiris” are probably the last thing I think of when I see slush:

And then there was what was underfoot, an unpredictable and potentially slippery coating on the pavement.

“You have to concentrate,” said Evelyn Gatzonis, who owns a spa in Astoria, Queens, and walked to work in leather boots with 4 1/2-inch stiletto heels. (It was Valentine’s Day, after all, she said.)

There was a lot to concentrate on: avoiding potholes in the making, and avoiding the sludgy, brackish liquid that had already filled them.

“It’s like a strawberry daiquiri that’s been out for five minutes and the stuff has started to separate so the syrup’s on the bottom and ice is on the top,” said Adele Morrissette, an investment banker whose office is in Rockefeller Center. “In this case, the syrup . . . you don’t want to know. The streets weren’t clean before it snowed.”

The Times takes great pleasure in pointing out that the Blizzard of 2006 was not so bad after all:

Even as the snow fell, and fell and fell, late Saturday and throughout Sunday, it never felt like the end of the world. Almost no one lost power. No one died from the storm. Hospitals were not swamped with shoveling-related heart attacks. No state, county, city or borough of emergency was declared.

As for why, various explanations are offered, including an inventive Persian cat comparison:

Because the track of this storm was relatively far offshore, it did not pack the wallop of wet warm ocean air that northeasters can, so the snow was dry and fluffy. Very, very fluffy. Like a Persian cat in a roomful of hair dryers. Thus it blew right off tree branches rather than snapping them down onto power lines. It practically shoveled itself.

Then there’s the issue of measurement:

News of the record-breaking storm that rolled through this weekend did not particularly impress Mr. [Billy] Slavin. “They keep records for Central Park,” Mr. Slavin said. “This is Elm Park [Staten Island].”

Mr. Slavin hit on another mitigating aspect of this storm. There really was less snow in Elm Park. And it wasn’t just Elm Park. Borough Park, Ozone Park, Parkchester, Park Ridge, Minnewaska State Park, the Vince Lombardi Park & Ride — just about any park other than Central, the record-breaking storm actually broke no record at all.

For according to Geoff Cornish, a meteorologist at Pennsylvania State University, the heaviest snow fell in a 15-mile-wide band that passed directly over Midtown Manhattan, the southeastern Bronx and northwestern Queens. Thus La Guardia Airport in Flushing received 9 inches more snow than Kennedy, and nobody in Brooklyn saw even 20 inches, let alone two feet.

In fact, of the 17.7 million people who live in the National Weather Service district that includes Central Park, fewer than half live in counties that recorded a two-foot snowfall.

One more thing. Not to cast doubt on a record — or on the hard-working people who keep it — but do you know who measures the snow at Central Park? The security guards at the zoo. They read the numbers off a stick set in a flat, tree-ringed clearing near the sea lion pool.

Therefore, the words, “According to the National Weather Service, the snowfall in Central Park . . .” actually mean, “According to the security guards at the Central Park Zoo.”

Well, thanks for spoiling it. Jerks.

See also: Language Log’s “The Storm Is Real, The Word Is Still Fake” on the use of “nor’easter”.

If there were ever a time to use That. Annoying. Punctuation. Convention. it’s this:

The biggest winter storm in New York City history — destined for lionization as the Blizzard of ‘06 — buried the region and much of the Northeast yesterday under blowing, drifting, thigh-high snows that crippled transportation and commerce, knocked out power and disrupted life for millions in 14 states.

After two months of humbug winter, the region awoke to a milk-white morning and an awesome storm that exceeded all forecasts, with snowfalls that transformed straw-drab landscapes into February postcards and brought out skiers, sledders and other wonderlanders.

Plows were out in force, too, and working around the clock. But there was so much snow that only major arteries were expected to be open for the start of the workweek today, and officials forecast sluggish commuting for anyone who failed to take mass transit. The storm — a great Crab nebula 1,200 miles long and 500 miles wide on satellite images and a ghostly apparition on the ground — crawled up the Eastern Seaboard overnight with winds that gusted up to 60 miles an hour, and cloaked the cities and countrysides from North Carolina to coastal Maine with 12 to more than 27 inches of snow, which broke or challenged records in many locales.

A total of 26.9 inches fell in Central Park, the most since record-keeping began in 1869, the National Weather Service reported. In what weather experts called a remarkable and relentless fall that began late Saturday afternoon and ended late yesterday, it eclipsed the legendary blow of Dec. 26-27, 1947, which dropped 26.4 inches and killed 77 people. It also easily surpassed the memorable No. 3 and No. 2 storms, of Jan. 6-7, 1996, which left 20.2 inches, and March 12-14, 1888, the notorious Blizzard of ‘88, which dropped 21 inches.

And Bah Humbug this — the storm wasn’t “technically” a blizzard:

Oddly, the record snowstorm in New York City was not technically a blizzard there, although it met the criteria on Long Island and elsewhere: winds of at least 35 miles an hour for three consecutive hours, and visibility of less than a quarter mile.

Whatever its official status in Gotham, the storm, a classic northeaster, was so powerful and the snow so deep that it seemed all but certain to be remembered as a blizzard. “We are talking about a technical definition,” said Jeff Tongue, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service at Brookhaven, N.Y.

And what conveys “cutting edge reporting from the best newspaper in the country” like the poetry of wine and soft jazz?

Central Park was a setting from a storybook. Children dragging parents dragging snowboards and sleds converged on all sides in a daylong migration. Large dogs galloped through the drifted meadows of the Great Lawn, and cross-country skiers glided among joggers gallomping in snowshoes.

For many indoors, it was a day to relax by a window, perhaps with a glass of wine and soft jazz on the radio, and take in the unreal loveliness of winter — the panes frosted like glass from Murano, the sills drifted with flourishes of lacework, and, out in the storm, dreamscapes of snow blowing down a street, curtains of snow falling in great sweeps, snow settling like peace in the parks and skeletal woodlands.

In an otherwise anemic winter filled with too many sunny days and too many clichés about spring, the storm elicited something more-or-less poetic from its admirers.

Meanwhile, instead of dithering over J.D. Salinger moments, the Post calls it like it sees it:

We were blown away.

The Great Whiteout of ‘06 — the biggest, boldest, baddest snowstorm ever to bombard the city — dumped 26.9 inches of the white stuff on the Apple yesterday, an all-time record.

And the Daily News practically shits itself:

“People have to just relax, it’s just a little bit of snow,” said Dean Willis, of Brooklyn. “There will be toilet paper and milk in the stores on Monday.”

See also: Blizzard of 2006, mostly in Hunters Point, Queens.

Staten Island Chuck — the borough’s answer to Punxsutawney Phil — emerged from his stump and did not see his shadow, leading true believers to expect an early Spring:

Charles G. Hogg the 6th, better known as Staten Island Chuck, has rendered his verdict.

During a festive debut at the Staten Island Zoo in West Brighton this morning, Chuck emerged from a hollow tree stump — with a little nudging from his handler Doug Schwartz — at around 7:30 a.m. and gave the people what they wanted: The prediction of an early spring.

“Chuck did not see his shadow,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) who presided over this morning’s ceremony with the tuxedo-wearing Advance Editor Brian J. Laline. “Get out your shorts and T-shirts. Spring is coming early.”

. . .

To prepare for his moment in the spotlight this morning, Chuck spent yesterday being pampered by Schwartz, who groomed his fur and gave him his favorite supper of carrots and broccoli.

Last year, Charles the 6th’s predecessor and father, Charles the 5th, wrongly predicted an early spring, but sent a poem from his retirement in sunny Florida, which was read by Schumer and Laline. The pair were jubilant that last year’s unfortunate weather miscalculation would be put to rest.

. . .

According to the Staten Island Zoo, Charles and his predecessors have been fairly accurate meteorologists since 1981. They have been correct 21 of the last 26 years, missing the mark in 1984, 1992, 1998, 2001 and 2005.

Chuck’s chief rival, Punxsutawney Phil of Pennsylvania, a well-known meteorological hero, scored last year with his accurate prediction of six more weeks of cold weather.

It seems the groundhogs are going head-to-head again this year as Phil was aroused this morning to announce that winter is sticking around for a while.

“We just received a bulletin from Pennsylvania,” said John Caltabiano, Zoo executive director. “Phil just predicted six more weeks of winter. What does he know?”

Today’s 61 degrees (so far!) serves as a gentle reminder of how out of touch Metropolitan Diary can be. See, in particular, today’s “January Lament”: “The weather shows it’s not July/and empathy’s in short supply.”

Has this person ventured outside in, I don’t know, the last 30 days? Because it’s not just today — the Sun reported on the warm weather — this January is one of the top ten warmest ever — back on January 11th:

In Midtown yesterday, it was evident that the recent bout of unusually warm weather is beginning to affect people’s perceptions of winter.

Some wore scarves but not jackets; others discarded all the trappings of the season and simply wore T-shirts.

Not that yesterday was a record breaker for warmth: The mercury in Central Park topped out at 49, 6 degrees above normal but 11 short of the record set in 1876. Monday was the record-setting day, when the temperature climbed to 60 at La Guardia Airport, shattering the record of 50 set in 1998.

. . .

So far this year, temperatures have dipped below freezing only three times, according to the National Weather Service. Normally by January, the jet stream is blowing cold air from Canada through the steel and concrete canyons of the city.

“Typically, by this time of year, things have shifted around where the northern branch of the jet stream has taken over, but that hasn’t happened yet, and it doesn’t look like it will happen soon,” a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, Adrienne Leptich, said.

Instead, warm air from the west and south has kept temperatures high. Warm days are expected for the rest of the week, with the warmest weather coming Friday, when temperatures could reach 60.

After yesterday’s Wilma-related rainfall, New York came this close to breaking a record for rainfall in a single month, although there are still a couple of days left in October. Joy. The record, in case you’re interested, came in September 1882 when 16.85 inches rain fell.