Luna Park is open. Baseball season has begun. Here comes the sun, New York, the lovely, lovely sun after a long winter full of nor’easters.
Not so fast: April remains a cruel month, mainly because the threat of snow is not yet over. In honor of the 5 inches of snow that blanketed parts of the city on Monday, we’ve rounded up the biggest April snowstorms on record in Central Park, according to the National Weather Service.
Also just a PSA: It has snowed in May four times. Trace amounts were recorded in Central Park in 1946, 1956, 1977 and 1995, documents show.
April 12-14, 1875: 10 inches
1875 was not a great year for NYC, weather-wise: January had an average temperature of 23.6 degrees; February had an average temperature of 25.2; and March just 34.1 degrees.
But April perhaps takes the cake. With an average temperate of 43.1 degrees, it’s the second-coldest April on record. Not to mention the snow: 10 inches fell between April 12 and 14, one of the latest snowfalls on record, according to the NWS.
April 3-4, 1915: 10.5 inches
The Easter Sunday Blizzard in 1915 mainly slammed the southeastern U.S., dumping more than 19 inches of snow in Philadelphia. New York, too, was not spared: 10.5 inches of snow fell, according to the NWS, and it most likely ruined everyone’s weekend.
April 8-9, 1917: 6.5 inches
The winter of 1917 seems to have gotten off to a late start. A storm on March 4-5 dumped 6.7 inches of snow on the city, followed by an April storm that left 6.5 inches of snow on the ground, data show. And then May had an average high temperature of just 54.3 degrees, one of the coldest on record.
April 1, 1924: 8.5 inches
New Yorkers weren’t laughing during this April Fools’ Day storm. It dumped 8.5 inches of snow on the city, also slamming Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, according to the NWS. Things didn’t really get any better in May, which had an average temperature of just 57.3 degrees.
April 6-7, 1938: 6.4 inches
Even though snow in April sounds bad no matter what, the April 1938 storm at least wasn’t as bad as it was in Chicago, where 9.1 inches of snow fell.
April 5, 1944: 6.5 inches
In the midst of World War II, New York got a dose of snow to make things just a little bit worse. Things got warmer in May, which had an average temperature of lovely 67 degrees, so at least that’s something.
April 6, 1982: 9.6 inches
Yankee Stadium Opening Day should mean sun, right? Not in 1982, when the Yankees-Rangers opener was canceled due to a reported 9.6 inches of snow being dumped on the city. ”Snow in April?” Frank Panisello told The New York Times. “Only once in your life.”
The blizzard classified April 1982 as the third-snowiest April on record. But hey, at least that was the only snowfall that month.
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