Event Summary

On Tuesday, December 24th, an area of low pressure began to develop over the Gulf coast states. That night, the storm intensified as it moved northeast, reaching the Virginia coastline by daybreak on December 25th. Around this time, spotty drizzle and light rain began to overspread the New York Metropolitan area and Long Island, while light freezing rain and freezing drizzle started to fall across the lower Hudson Valley. As the morning progressed, the center of low pressure started to track northeast over the Atlantic along a path that hugged the coast. As a result, a steady rain developed over New York City and Long Island, while freezing rain began to mix with sleet and snow in the lower Hudson Valley. As the storm started to move east of the tri-state area, winds shifted from the east and northeast to the north or northwest. This allowed colder air to slowly infiltrate southeastern New York. The wintry mix changed to snow in the lower Hudson Valley during the early afternoon, and the rain changed to snow during the midafternoon in New York City and during the late afternoon across all of Long Island except for the twin forks region where the rain did not change to snow until that evening. During the late afternoon and early evening, narrow bands of heavy snow developed and moved over parts of the region, which resulted in large ranges of snowfall with this storm. As the center of the storm continued to move northeast away from the area, the snow then tapered off to light snow and flurries overnight, ending shortly after midnight in the lower Hudson Valley and New York City, and from west to east between about 2 am and 4 am across Long Island. Snowfall amounts in Orange and Putnam counties ranged from 10 to 20 inches, 6 to 12 inches fell in Rockland and Westchester counties, and 3 to 6 inches in New York City, except for an area across the eastern Bronx and northeastern Queens, where 6 to 10 inches fell. On Long Island, 6 to 12 inches fell in Nassau and Western Suffolk counties, while across eastern Suffolk amounts ranged from less than an inch across the twin forks to 2 to 4 inches just west of Riverhead. The wide ranges of snowfall were generally due to narrow banding of heavy snow, but across Long Island the timing of the change from rain to snow also accounted for the pronounced differential of snow received.