The National Weather Service has announced a hazardous weather alert for New York City, warning residents to brace for biting wind chills and intermittent snow flurries anticipated from Friday night through Saturday morning.
Overnight temperatures on Friday are expected to slightly dip below the freezing mark, but brisk winds will make it feel as cold as 20 degrees. On Saturday, temperatures will climb marginally; however, the wind chill will still make it feel like a chilly 25 degrees.
Local areas could experience up to an inch of snow accumulation, with a 30 percent likelihood of precipitation, as reported by the weather service.
In response, NYC Emergency Management has put out a “Cold Blue” advisory effective from Friday afternoon until 8 a.m. on Saturday. Outreach teams have been dispatched across all five boroughs to assist vulnerable individuals in finding shelter.
According to NYCEM, “No one who is homeless and seeking shelter during a Code Blue in New York City will be turned away.” They encourage residents to contact 311 through phone or app if they identify anyone in need of outreach services.
This advisory comes on the heels of a persistent cold spell, which officials revealed on Thursday has tragically resulted in 19 fatalities on the city’s streets.
The city medical examiner’s office found that 15 of those deaths were due to hypothermia, with the others remaining undetermined. The mayor’s office has said that three of the deaths were due to drug overdoses.
Earlier this week, New York City Council members grilled Mamdani administration officials over their outreach to homeless New Yorkers during the cold spell. Breaking with his predecessors, Mayor Mamdani has refused repeated calls to involuntarily remove the homeless from the streets amid freezing conditions, with he himself having called the cold snap’s coldest period “lethal.”
“Eighteen New Yorkers have lost their lives since the city declared Code Blue. These deaths are not inevitable,” Council Speaker Julie Menin said Tuesday. “They are the result of gaps in outreach, shelter capacity, mental health services.”
Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Wasow Park said at a City Council oversight hearing that the total number of hypothermia-related deaths this winter for homeless New Yorkers is likely to be worse than in typical years.
“This is gonna be a year that is outside the norm, which is tragic, and I feel that every day,” Park told the hearing. “So I think we will be looking at what we can do differently. Absolutely.”
The city on Tuesday confirmed seven additional cold-related deaths that occurred at private residences. The specific circumstances of those seven deaths were not immediately available, though the mayor’s office confirmed that hypothermia was determined to be the cause of death for all of them.
