N.Y. Today: A snowstorm in five pictures

February 24, 2026

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll look at all things snow.

Graham Dickie for The New York Times

New York City hasn’t seen this much snow in years. Monday morning looked a little like a scene out of “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

The snowstorm began Sunday, and by the next afternoon it had dumped 19.7 inches of snow in Central Park, according to the National Weather Service. The weather snarled travel plans and derailed the daily routines of commuters and students with closures and cancellations.

Here’s a look at the blizzard — the city’s first since 2016 — in five pictures.

A snow plow with its headlights on travels down a snow-covered street as snow falls.

Dakota Santiago for The New York Times

Clearing the Streets

Thousands of workers from the Department of Sanitation worked 12-hour shifts to clear the snow, plowing 99.3 percent of the streets at least once by 5:30 a.m. yesterday. Residents could use the PlowNYC color-coded map to track, in real time, how long it had been since their streets had been cleared.

A person in blue snow gear and a person in yellow snow gear face each other as the shovel snow in the street.

Graham Dickie for The New York Times

Digging Out

In many neighborhoods, you could hear the sound of shovels scraping the ground. The city deployed more than 1,000 emergency shovelers across the boroughs to help clear snow. Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that the shovelers would receive a boost in pay to $30 an hour, up from $19.14, given the volume of the storm. The city was under a blizzard warning until yesterday at 6 p.m.

A person runs across a snow-covered streets with city buses on either side of them.

Graham Dickie for The New York Times

Getting Around Town

As the streets became coated with snow, the mayor issued a travel ban from Sunday at 9 p.m. to noon yesterday. All nonessential vehicles were restricted from city roads during those hours. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the subway and buses, advised customers to avoid travel and prepare for delays if they had to go out.

And good luck if you have vacation plans this week: By 8 a.m. yesterday, nearly 3,000 flights had been canceled across Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark Airports, according to New York City Emergency Management.

A snow-covered tent in a park next to shopping carts and a bicycle.

Graham Dickie for The New York Times

Looking Out for Those in Need

With a “code blue” emergency in effect, Mr. Mamdani said no homeless people would be denied shelter. But the shelters aren’t attractive to everyone.

“The shelter people are rough,” Edward Roberts, 64, said in an interview yesterday morning at Penn Station. “There are mentally ill people, angry people. You won’t have peace.”

Roberts had spent the previous night in the passageway of a nearby store, he told my colleagues Wesley Parnell and Dana Rubinstein, using cardboard to block the wind. He drank a little, smoked a cigarette, and then read a Stephen King novel under a night light until he fell asleep. He went to Penn Station in the morning to warm up, joining dozens of others who had made similar calculations.

A woman stands on a barrier in Times Square with her hands extended out at her sides as snow falls around her.

Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

Nothing Beats a Snow Day

Although New Yorkers were advised to stay inside, who could resist the allure of fresh snow? People reveled in it as it fell in Times Square. There were snowball fights, snowmen with crooked carrot noses and sledders in the streets. Mamdani, at a news conference yesterday afternoon, said students could hit him with snowballs if they saw him outside, since class would be back in session today after yesterday’s classic snow day.

WEATHER

Today will be mostly sunny with a high around 32 degrees, though the snowfall isn’t quite over. Expect a partly cloudy night with a low near 24 before snow showers pick up again.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

Suspended through March 1 for snow removal.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“People depend on us.” — Eli Maghi, an employee at Greene Bites 24-hour bodega in Fort Greene, said about the store staying open and busy throughout the blizzard.

The latest Metro news

Yakov Klots, dressed in a dark jacket and black shirt, poses for a portrait. He is sitting between two tall bookcases.

Amir Hamja for The New York Times

Banned books in a New York library: A professor at Hunter College has built one of the largest special collections of contraband Russian literature in the world, including thousands of books once banned in the Soviet Union and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, and hundreds more that are censored in Russia today.
Not composting could cost you: Under the Mamdani administration, the city’s curbside composting program is being fully enforced again, with no exceptions. Fines for building owners who fail to abide by the composting rules range from $25 to $300.
Power outages: New Jersey experienced a growing number of outages, as wind conditions made the winter weather worse, leaving more than 125,000 utility customers without electricity.
Professor accused of racist comments: Hunter College said it would review whether “abhorrent remarks” made by a professor at a public meeting — after a student objected to the potential closure of her New York City middle school — violated the institution’s policies.
Next stop for a Sundance director: Tabitha Jackson took over as the new director of Film Forum, the venerable nonprofit art-house cinema in Greenwich Village, after serving as director of the Sundance Film Festival.

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METROPOLITAN DIARY

The push

A black-and-white drawing of one man pushing another into a pile of full garbage bags.

Dear Diary:

I was walking home on a quiet SoHo street, smoking a cigarette very early in the morning after a long night of working, when I was stopped by a couple of guys with a camera. They were N.Y.U. students shooting a short film.

Can you help us? one asked. I will go up to you and ask for a cigarette. You will say no and push me into a garbage pile.

Just like that? I said. You sure?

Yes, he said. Push me hard.

As it happened, I was in a bad mood, and when the scene started, I pushed him hard into a pile of black bags covering the sidewalk and gutter. It felt surprisingly good.

Why did you do that? he said, looking upset.

I shrugged.

At that point, he seemed to pause to collect his thoughts. He went over to the bags and piled them up for a softer landing.

Let’s do it again, he said. But please, softer on the push.

A little mellowed by the interaction, I followed the instructions. Afterward, they thanked me.

I wonder if they got an A.

— Johan Alderin

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.