Eastern Suffolk digs out from latest snowstorm
Photo credit: James Carbone | A car drives through whiteout conditions on Northville Turnpike in Riverhead where police closed some roadways due to dangerous driving conditions. (Jan. 3, 2009)
Bitter winter weather hits Suffolk County
PHOTOS: Weekend snowstorm on Long Island
LI blizzard history: 60 years of snow
Snow-loving animals
They're still digging out Monday in eastern Suffolk County, which took the brunt of a winter storm that had minimal impact in Nassau.
Nearly 10 inches of snow fell Sunday in Upton and nearly a dozen East End school districts have delayed openings Monday as a result.
"Some streets are still in the process of being plowed out here," National Weather Service spokesman Matt Scalora said Monday from his Upton office. "There's a pretty big disparity with what happened in Nassau and Queens and snow in Suffolk."
>>PHOTOS: Weekend snowstorm chills LIers
>>VIDEO: Click here to see the bitter winter weather hit Suffolk County
The storm track seemed to cut the Island in half, in fact.
According to the weather service, 4.6 inches of snow fell at MacArthur Airport, while Medford got 5.5 inches, Orient 6.6 inches, Mount Sinai 9.2 inches, and Upton 9.7 inches of snow.
Meanwhile, barely 2/10ths of an inch fell on Central Park.
Snowfall accumulations meant at least two-hour delays in a number of school districts: Amagansett, Bridgehampton, East Hampton, East Quogue, Hampton Bays, Sag Harbor, Sagaponack, Southampton, Springs, Tuckahoe Common and Wainscott. Officials said Southampton Town Hall will be open just a half-day, as a result of the snowfall.
Meanwhile, one thing all Long
can count on is frigid weather as temperatures continue to cling to the low-to-mid 20s on Monday. In many areas the wind chill temperatures are in the high teens.
The frigid conditions are due to a New Year's storm that crawled up the East Coast several days ago, embarked on a circular pattern when it reached northern New England, and has been "spinning around" ever since between Maine and Long Island, said National Weather Service meteorologist John Cristanello.
"It really hasn't moved in the last couple of days," he said.
While the storm moved east Sunday night, it was expected to settle over Newfoundland, keeping Long Island temperatures around the freezing mark through Wednesday at least, the weather service predicts.
The Long Island Rail Road Monday reported the 8:03 a.m. from Babylon had been canceled because of "a track condition west of Amityville." Customers were to be accommodated on the scheduled 8:16 a.m. train.
Weather-related snarls Sunday saw train service canceled between Ronkonkoma and Greenport due to high snow drifts in the Mattituck and Southold areas.
Fewer than half a dozen trains were affected, a railroad spokesman said.
The winds knocked out power to 1,809 customers from noon Saturday to 3 p.m. Sunday, a Long Island Power Authority spokeswoman said. Almost all but 30 customers had power restored as of Sunday night, according to the LIPA Web site.
However, there was a rash of outages in Oakdale as of Monday morning, where nearly 250 households were without electricity as of 7 a.m. LIPA reported fewer than 10 outages across the rest of Long Island on Monday.
With Carl MacGowan and Alfonso A. Castillo
>> For breaking news, follow Newsday on Twitter
>> Friend Alicia P. Newsday on Facebook
>>PHOTOS: Weekend snowstorm chills LIers
SNOW TOTALS ON LONG ISLAND
report your snow totals submit snow pictures
newsday.com storm coverage
Forecast
- Latest forecast
- Live map
- Hour-by-hour
- Warning and alerts
- National Weather Service
- NOAA Storm total forecast
Services
- Closings and delays
- Latest traffic alerts
- LIRR service alerts
- LIPA Outages
- Nassau bus delays
- Suffolk bus delays
- Flight delays
- NYC closures
