Well, that was snow disappointing.
The Big Apple only received a third of the predicted winter wonderland dumping — but enough precipitation still fell to snarl hundreds of fliers’ holiday plans.
New Yorkers woke up Saturday morning to a roughly 4-inch blanket, a far cry from the nearly 11-inch pummeling city officials had warned was incoming.
“The storm was going into a lot of cold air, which is dense. It kind of slows things down quite a bit,” explained Accuweather meteorologist Melissa Constancer.
New York’s sharp change in forecast came around 9 p.m. Friday, when the city’s Emergency Management department alerted that between just 2 and 5 inches were predicted to fall throughout the five boroughs.
Just three hours prior, officials were forecasting between 7 and 11 inches — which would have been the biggest snow storm since a 16.8 inches came down in Central Park in 2021.
Queens received the most snow overnight, with 4.6 inches recorded as of 7 a.m., according to the National Weather Service.
But the other boroughs were just a hair behind, with Fordham, Williamsburg and Central Park each measuring 4.3 inches.
Flurries were expected to continue through 11 a.m., though they weren’t expected to significantly contribute additional inches to the snowfall totals.
The Department of Sanitation planned to continue to salt and plow roads throughout the day, with 700 salt spreaders already dispatched.
“4.3 inches of snow in New York City at the snowiest January 20th 8th to January 29th of 2022. It got 8.3in there in Central Park,” said Constancer.
Nassau County got much of the same snowfall as the Big Apple, while Suffolk got nearly double in some places. Babylon and Orient logged the most with 7.5 inches each.
Connecticut got the biggest dousing in the wider metro area, with New Fairfield measuring 9 inches at 4 a.m.
All three metro airports were hit with between 4.1 and 4.3 inches — just enough to cancel hundreds of flights and strand thousands of fliers.
The storm caused 133 flight cancellations and 73 delays out of John F. Kennedy International Airport — the highest totals of any US airport on Saturday, according to FlightAware. La Guardia and Newark airports took the number two and three spots, with a respective 85 and 70 cancellations.
AJ Abad and his family were only supposed to have a two-hour layover at JFK from their Philippines vacation back home to Canada, but were stranded for 36 hours as of Saturday morning.
“We didn’t sleep. We kept on walking around. We asked for hotel accommodation. They said no because the cancellation was due to the weather, it’s not their fault. We asked for a voucher, they said no,” Abad, 33, told The Post.
“There was a whole line of people sleeping on the floor last night.”
The family, which includes his 55-year-old mother-in-law, his 15-year-old sister-in-law and a friend, were offered two seats to a standby flight — meaning three are still staring down the barrel of a much longer stay.
All the nearby hotels were booked, they said. American Airlines offered the family blankets and pillows, but Abad went without because there wasn’t enough to go around.
“At first, it was frustrating. All we want to do is get back home. At this point, there’s nothing we can do. We’re only two hours away from home,” Abad said.
“I’m looking forward to a hot bath, toothpaste, and a toothbrush. At this point, we’re just making the best of everything, but we want to go home.”
