New York City, February 1, 2016

★★Black specks and lines traced the little jagged edges all over the shrinking snowbanks. Broadway was sheeted with water in the morning sun. The clouds were soft-edged, fading from white to blue by subtle and odd degrees. The breeze felt cool and rinsed; the gutters were a catalog of litter and grime. Then the clouds took firmer shape, with tight blue divisions between them. A while more and the spaces were gone. The pavement darkened and someone walked along Fifth Avenue with an umbrella. Drops fell, too big to be drizzle and but too sparse to be rain. The gray held, almost solid — save only in the northwest, where its edge failed to meet the horizon, and streaks of orange and pink glowed under the gap.