Not snow much for Long Island
This sedan sits on the Northern State Parkway near Round Swamp Road in Huntington after it went out of control during Friday's snowstorm. The driver was taken to the hospital with injuries. (Jan. 7, 2011) Credit: Photo by Peter Walden Sr.
Just as the evening commute really got going, the snow in Nassau County ended and was expected to move out of western Suffolk County by 8 p.m., forecasters said.
The band of snow, expected to leave only about 2 to 3 inches, moved "a little bit faster than we expected, and temperatures are a little warmer - in the mid-30s," so at times the snow mixed with rain in Suffolk, National Weather Service meteorologist John Murray said early Friday afternoon.
A winter weather advisory expired at 5 p.m. in Nassau County and 8 p.m. in western Suffolk, Murray said.
The advisory remains in effect in eastern Suffolk - east of Shirley and Ridge - until 3 a.m. Saturday. The initial advisory had been until 6 a.m.
Unofficial reports from the National Weather Service said by 5 p.m. East Northport had 2.5 inches of snow; Rocky Point 2.3 inches; and North Massapequa 2 inches.
On Friday evening, drivers were urged to be prepared for slippery roads and limited visibility, the National Weather Service said.
As of 6 p.m., the state Department of Transportation was reporting one accident on Long Island major roads - a multiple-car crash on Sunrise Highway at Carleton Avenue in Islip Terrace that closed two eastbound lanes at 6:10 p.m. Those lanes were reopened by 7:23 p.m., the DOT said. It was unclear if there were injuries.
Local airports were reporting some delays Friday night, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
At LaGuardia, arrivals were being delayed an average of an hour. Long Island MacArthur Airport reported delays of up to 15 minutes on departures and arrivals, as did Kennedy Airport.
And even though the snowfall likely will pack far less punch than the blizzard that hit the day after Christmas, schools and other agencies took precautions, with many districts canceling after-school activities.
Some schools announced early closings Friday, including Montauk public schools and Half Hollow Hills middle and high schools.
The Long Island Rail Road added eight eastbound trains out of Penn Station between 2:10 and 3:48 p.m. for people trying to beat the storm. These included extra trains to Hicksville, Huntington, Babylon, Great Neck and Far Rockaway.
As of 7:30 p.m., there were delays involving four trains - one each on the Babylon, Far Rockaway, Port Jefferson and Montauk lines, according to the LIRR.
The MTA began outfitting some buses, including those in Nassau, with tire chains on Thursday, officials said.
Acknowledging the MTA's "spotty performance" during last month's blizzard, transit officials also said they were reinstituting a plan that had been abandoned for years.
The agency has set up situation rooms for the MTA's subway and bus operations, MTA New York City Transit President Thomas Prendergast said Thursday. There, senior management officials will monitor problems and make calls on how to address them.
Prendergast said senior management's lack of access to real-time information hampered the MTA's ability to bounce back from the last storm, during which some subway riders were stranded on trains for hours.
Prendergast said the subway system was put on its highest weather alert level Thursday morning and began mobilizing crews and equipment.
