New York City, March 18, 2013

★★★★ The wind blasted right through a sweater on the way out the door. Heavy-coated toddlers, roped together, caterpillared their way down the block. There had been clear orange light at dawn, but now there was no sign such a thing had ever been possible. The buildings on Fifth Avenue framed solidly gray sky. Down inside the 23rd Street station, cold air plummeted through the sidewalk grate, bounced off the ceiling covering the tracks, and poured down the back wall of the platform. By afternoon, dense, fine snow was angling down — and then there were white ice pellets, stinging, dropping straight. Chinatown grocers pulled plastic covers over their sidewalk bins. This was amounting to something; it was here for the duration. The pellets clung to cloth coats, taking a long time to melt even in the crowded subway station. In the evening, through a nauseated daze and under bedcovers, there came the sound of plows scraping pavement and behind that what seemed to be thunder.