NYC Weather Warning: Micro-Blizzard And 'Whiteout Conditions' Possible Today

I am going to guess that roughly 90 percent of the headlines you have seen today have something to do with the extreme cold sweeping much of the country, New York City absolutely included. The panic seems deserved. Yesterday we warned you that the impending ARCTIC BLAST will bring marrow-freezing wind chill and insidious black ice, and all of that still stands. Now, however, I bring you another exciting winter storm ingredient, courtesy of Notify NYC: whiteout conditions. Let's throw that in the mix, why the hell not.

Apparently, the way-too-high winds, combined with what doesn't even sound like that much snow, could produce a sort of small-scale blizzard burst this afternoon. The snow squalls—intense spurts of blowing snow that may not last long or translate to significant accumulation, but will certainly rough you up if given the chance—may feel like a merciless bodily assault, the flakes lashing your face relentlessly as if you hadn't even bothered with the balaclava, and making it damn near impossible to see your hand as you wave it right in front of your face. It will be like if you lived inside the snow globe, with some two-year-old giant shaking it ceaselessly, violently for three hours, howling shrilly as you suffer.

Otherwise, the forecast remains mostly unchanged from yesterday: Temps will continue to climb into the afternoon, topping out around 30 degrees (which will feel like 16 degrees, ha) near 2 p.m. The flurrying should also begin around that time, but will cease to be cozy and benign as winds pick up. Temps will plummet into the single digits as we ride out the micro-blizzard until roughly 5 p.m. The OEM anticipates that your commute will be worse because of this, and urges you to consider public transportation—which also tends to buckle under the weight of a weather threat—if you must travel this evening.

After the squalls die down, it will (probably) just get colder and colder and colder as the winds continue to rage unchecked. The conditions will be dangerous, even life-threatening. The city commits to sheltering anyone experiencing homelessness when temperatures drop below freezing, and advises concerned New Yorkers to call 311 to dispatch an outreach team for people who have nowhere to go in this weather.

And as always, please be kind to your fellow New Yorkers: As previously mentioned, you might consider stocking up on supplies before the cold snap hits so that delivery workers don't have to brave the tundra for you (if you must order, you must also tack on an extra generous tip), and remember that it's legal to swipe people into the subway.

Not to point fingers or anything but we are all to blame for the miserable frozen hellscape in which we find ourselves mired. Science deniers like to point to cold temperatures in the winter as proof that things are ticking along as they should, but really, frigid blasts like these result directly from the warming arctic: Icy tundra air gets swept evermore southward as the polar vortex weakens. You can let my esteemed colleague Jake Offenhartz tell you more about that phenomenon, but suffice it to say, we made our beds and now we will freeze in them.