Hot tub snow machine!
Massive hot tubs have been deployed across the Big Apple for the first time in nearly five years to melt snow from Sunday’s deadly winter storm.
Eight so-called “snow melters” were rolled out Tuesday morning to rid streets, sidewalks and bus stops of pesky snow that would otherwise linger for weeks due to consistently below-freezing temperatures, city sanitation officials said Wednesday.
“The snow is just not melting at all, [and] we want to make sure we have enough real estate for businesses and pedestrians to get around freely,” Acting Department of Sanitation Commissioner Javier Lojan told The Post.
“In the next couple of days, they’ll notice the difference,” he said.
The hot tubs – which can melt roughly 60 to 120 tons of snow per hour – are stationed at sites like Broad and Water streets in lower Manhattan, where football field-sized mountains of snow are dumped into the melting tubs at 38 degrees Fahrenheit.
The water is then dumped directly into a sewer with permission from the Department of Environmental Protection. The sites are chosen based on the permissions DSNY can obtain from the environmental authority, Lojan said.
The last time the hot tubs were fully deployed was in February 2021 after a monster nor’easter pummeled the city with several rounds of snow.
There was also limited use of the tubs in February 2022, sanitation reps said.
Winter Storm Fern dropped nearly 15 inches on some parts of the city — including a whopping 11.4 inches of snow in Central Park and 14.9 inches in Washington Heights in upper Manhattan.
It was the first time a storm dropped more than a foot of snow in the city since 2021.
The eight snow melters – of the 27 DSNY has in its garages across the city – are stationed in Inwood and lower Manhattan; Orchard Beach in the Bronx; East New York and Red Hook in Brooklyn; Maspeth and Queensboro Hill in Queens and South Beach in Staten Island.
New Yorkers should expect to see the hot tubs heating up city blocks for the next “several weeks,” Lojan said.
Another round of snow this upcoming weekend could prolong the red-hot rollout, Lojan said.
“It depends on this weekend’s storm how much progress we make in the next few days,” the commissioner added.
“Obviously, we’re a little far out.”
