BY WALTER ELLIOTT
Photo By Kristopher Seals
NEWARK – The National Weather Service may have received nods from “Local Talk” residents when it proclaimed that New York City’s snow drought had ended after 701 days at 7 a.m. Jan. 16.
NWS made the proclamation after measuring more than an inch of snow at its observatory in Central Park. They said that the last measurable snowfall went back to Feb. 13, 2022.
“Local Talk” territory, some 12 miles west of Central Park, has also had a little more than a coating after over a year. The current Jan. 15-19 cold snap brought snow flurries on Jan. 15 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday – that started to stick to the ground after 5 p.m. sunset.
There was at least an inch of snow in most of “Local Talk’s” urban areas by sunrise Jan. 16 and up to two inches more in the higher elevations of the Orange and Watchung Mountains from Maplewood into Upper Montclair.
Some of the snow became freezing rain by 11:30 a.m., creating icy surfaces. That was part of a trend that the NWS and NOAA had predicted would come up from Southern New Jersey that would last until sunset Jan. 16.
The sound of snow truck plows and scraping shovels returned for the first time in 1.5 winters.
A score of public, charter and private schools – including some districts who would not normally call a snow day – either closed for that Tuesday, switched to remote learning, canceled preschool and/or after school activities or delayed opening for up to two hours.
The varying range of closures and delayed openings reflect administrators’ consideration of teachers and other staff having to travel in the ice and snow ahead of students. Private contracted school bus companies also have to be called in case of postponed openings.
The days of a single complete roster of school closings and delays from a media outlet are long gone. The following is a list gathered from several news sources and/or individual school websites or Facebook pages. This serves as a sample of Jan. 16 responses.
SCHOOL CANCELLATION OR DELAYS
Closed Schools:
IRVINGTON Burch Charter School of Excellence
EAST ORANGE St. Joseph’s School. (Remote Learning Only.)
MONTCLAIR
Montclair Public Schools.
Montclair Fusion Academy.
Delays:
NEWARK
Newark Public Schools – 10 a.m. Delayed Opening.
Roseville Community Charter School – 2 Hour Delayed Opening.
St Phillips Academy – 10 a.m. Delayed Opening
KIPP Newark and Camden – 2 Hour Delay.
IRVINGTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS – 10 a.m. Delayed Opening.
EAST ORANGE PUBLIC SCHOOLS – 2 Hour Delayed Opening
East Orange Community Charter School – 2 Hour Delayed Opening.
Pride Academy Charter School – 10 a.m. Opening.
ESSEX COUNTY SCHOOLS OF TECHNOLOGY
(Newark and W. Caldwell) – 90 min. Delayed Opening to 10 a.m.
ORANGE PUBLIC SCHOOLS – 10 a.m. Delayed Opening.
WEST ORANGE
West Orange Public Schools – 90 min. Delayed Opening.
Golda Ochs Academy – 2 Hour Delayed Opening.
SOUTH ORANGE-MAPLEWOOD SCHOOL DISTRICT – 2 Hour Delayed Opening.
BLOOMFIELD – 2 Hour Delay
GLEN RIDGE – 2 Hour Delay.
BELLEVILLE – 90 Min. Delay.
NUTLEY – 90 Min. Delay up to 10 a.m., Preschool, after school cancelled. Athletic games and practice cancelled.
The above is just for Jan. 15-16 – which, as of this writing – is the latest of a string of wintery weather landing on the “Local Talk” area.
There was a rainstorm Jan. 9 that came with 35+ mph wind gusts, causing Gov. Phil Murphy to call a weather state of emergency. Nutley Public Schools’ Jan. 16 closings, in fact, was a copy from their Jan. 6 announcement.
There was a string of five weekends of rain in the late fall into the Holidays, causing a general saturation of the ground. The soaked up earth caused runoff to go into rivers and streams, flooding low lying areas by the Passaic and Raritan Rivers.
There are still some homeowners who are still pumping out basements as of deadline. They need not be just along the Passaic or the Raritan: “Local Talk’s” smaller streams – like the Peckman River in Montclair and Nutley, Toney’s Brook from Montclair, Wigwam Brook from the Oranges, Irvington’s Lightning Brook and the East Branch of the Rahway River have overflowed their banks Jan. 9-10 to cause flooding of houses and/or roads.
It appears that the “Local Talk” area is in a rain/snow cycle every three to five days into late January.
