February here in New York City started cold and ended colder.
The temperature on February 1 reached 36 degrees. Today, the 28th of the month, is slated to reach 29. This month is the third-coldest February on record, according to the National Weather Service. That makes it the coldest February since 1934.
The month will end cold. Highs today in the 20s and overnight lows in the single digits and teens. Slightly colder highs on Saturday.
— NWS New York NY (@NWSNewYorkNY) February 27, 2015
I realized recently that the temperature displays atop the old bank building at 73rd and Broadway and the one above Columbus Circle seem to change by fewer than 10 degrees no matter when I see them. Whenever I pass, the digits rarely, if ever, exceed 30.
“It was like the most sick month you can think of,” Jay Engle, a meteorologist with the weather service, told the Times, which noted that it even has been cold on subway platforms and other places that don’t usually get cold.
Which brings me to the one redeeming thing I can say about February. I never hurried home from the grocery store for fear that my frozen yogurt would unfreeze.
On Presidents Day, I went into a movie at 4:00 p.m. Though the feature was fine, I bought a ticket mostly because I wanted to warm up.
That reminded me of a piece from The New Yorker that I like. It’s about the Bleecker Street Cinema, an art house theater that closed in 1991. In the piece, from 1974, a guy named Larry emerges from the ticket booth. Les Rubin, the impresario behind showing old movies, tells the reporter:
Larry has an M.A. in meteorology. It wasn’t until tonight that he realized there was a difference between William Powell and Dick Powell. And look what it’s done for him! He just had a brilliant idea. We put a big sign out front that says, ‘40° WARMER INSIDE.’”