New York City witnessed its first measurable snowfall this winter, just days after surpassing the record for its longest snowless streak set a half-century ago. The snow lightly coated sidewalks, cars and roads, punctuating what has been an atypical winter in the metro region.

In Western New York, the advent of snowfall played out much differently. In late December, the city of Buffalo was struck with a blizzard that dropped about 51.9 inches on the city.

The five boroughs seemed to prevail over its snow drought on Jan. 25, but the snowflakes falling from above melted entirely by the time they hit the surface, making it immeasurable for meteorologists to document this startling phenomenon. On Dec. 15, 2022, New York City reached a staggering 332 days without any snowfall.

Dave Radell, a meteorologist associated with the National Weather Service of New York, claims that the absence of snowfall is due to recent storm paths. The center of the storms were located north and west of the warm metro region.

“We don’t have a lot of cold air hanging around,” Radell said. “The cold air is further up to the north, where they’ve had snow.”

Some New Yorkers fear that this unusual circumstance may be prognosticating a forceful snowstorm in February. In the past, these major storms have been perilous to the livelihood of New York City residents, resulting in a significant amount of damage to countless homes and businesses.

“It’s still too early to stick a fork in winter,” Chris Stachelski, the East Coast overseer for the

National Weather Service said . “There has definitely been some winters around here in the last 20 or 30 years where there’s been not much snow in the beginning of the winter, and then at the end, it’s bad.”