New snow covered the ground in most of the Catskills on Friday night, and by Saturday morning there was even snow cover beneath the pine trees. The message from the Belleayre ski center, where the temperature was 20 degrees Fahrenheit, was exceptionally cheery.
“Mother nature is making up for the temper tantrum she had over the last week!” it said. “We woke up this morning to a nice, still morning with a fresh two-inch dusting at our feet of light fluff that is sure to kick your weekend off to a whimsical start.”
From a ski facility’s perspective, the “temper tantrum” was its reference to the disobedient behavior involved in more than a full week of temperatures in the forties bringing considerable snow melt.
The management of the nation’s largest municipal water supply system, which delivers its water from a watershed that extends more than 125 miles from the city, comprising 19 reservoirs and three controlled lakes, has a quite different viewpoint. It sees snow melt as vital insurance against water scarcity, and it frets that global warming and other factors may be threatening the availability of this insurance.
Belleayre and New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) were both happy that it kept snowing well into Saturday afternoon. Belleayre was happy that it snowed. The DEP was happy that the snow would melt by June 1, when it likes all its reservoirs to be full.
The DEP delivers drinking water to nearly ten million residents, including 8.275 million in New York City. If all the city’s reservoirs were full, that 558 billion gallons would constitute about a year and a half of water supply.
During the driest spell in its recorded history, New York City declared a drought watch on November 2, 2024. It elevated the drought watch to a drought warning on November 18. After increased upstate rainfall and significant managerial measures, the city downgraded back to a drought watch. The watch ended January 3, 2025.
In New York City, 2025 was the driest summer in many years, and a below-average early winter brought new concerns. With the reservoir system only 77.4 percent full on January 5, well below the historical average of 89.6 percent for that date of the year, a lack of snow melt would make an already difficult situation even more dire.
The 2026 New Year‘s Day snowstorm, followed a few days later by uninterrupted mild weather, can be used as a case study of the impact of an additional snow melt to the winter weather menu.
Just as one swallow doesn’t make a summer, as the old saying goes, so one snow melt doesn’t make a winter.
That’s the conclusion the aftermath of the New Year’s storm seems to suggest. Between the beginning of the warmer weather and the January 16 reading, the percentage of water in the DEP reservoirs increased from 77.4 percent to 80.0 percent.
The 2.6 percent increase — representing 14.5 billion gallons of additional water — is nothing to sneeze at. But the progress it represents is diminished for two reasons. The first is that, because New York City’s water supply very recently experienced a historic drought, it’s going to take a lot more water than that to meet the goal of full reservoirs by June 1. Secondly, the historical records of water supply show an increase of eight-tenths of one percent during that period anyway.
The snowstorms this past week ought to provide the insurance the New York City DEP has been hoping for.
Weather is very much a Rorschach test. What you see depends on your perspective.
“Well, the fluff start comin’ and it won’t stop comin’,” said the Belleayre Mountain website Sunday morning, where the summit temperature was 21 degrees at the summit. “After getting a surprise four inches of fresh natural snow on Saturday, we arrived to the mountain to find another two inches dropped off by Mother Nature while we snoozed! That will bring our storm total to six inches, and the best part is it’s still coming down!”
That was not at all Governor Kathy Hochul’s mood.
“Following a system that will bring up to five inches of snow to the Mid-Hudson, New York City and Long Island regions on Sunday, Monday is set to bring snow that will be heavy at times, with up to three feet possible for areas off Lake Ontario ….” her Sunday morning press release warned. “The combination of heavy snow and strong winds will create dangerous travel conditions, especially during the Monday and Tuesday commutes.”
With an inch or two of snow Sunday morning, a brief slowdown of precipitation in the afternoon, and an additional two to four inches predicted by the National Weather Service for later in the day, New York City was having its own problems.
The forecast for Kingston was light snow likely in the late afternoon, with an inch of new snow and a total snow accumulation of one to three inches possible.
With the winter not quite half over and at least two substantial snow melts on the books, it becomes plausible for the first time this year to think that New York City may fill its reservoirs by June 1, closing the book on the most serious water shortage in decades.
The most notable lesson learned will be that learned from previous close calls: protecting water supply by constant attention to water demand. New York City once managed to decrease its thirst for water from one and a half billion gallons daily consumption to one billion gallons at a time of increased population.
Supply protection measures must also continue. With its Kingston offices and laboratories on Smith Avenue, its police presence throughout its watersheds, and the substantial taxes it pays throughout its watersheds, New York City is a major presence in the Catskills. Though DEP’s relationship with the Coalition of Watershed Towns has not always been smooth, the two entities communicate often and work together sometimes.
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