Todd Heisler/The New York Times Brrrr. Updated 6:51 a.m.
Good freezing Tuesday morning to you. Please do not hog the covers.
With Groundhog Day around the corner, it is a good time to remember that weather patterns tend to repeat themselves.
And so, after a 44-degree yesterday, we awake in the depths of the third cold wave of this roller-coaster month.
It is around 15 degrees with a wind chill of near zero. It will get up to only around 19 this sunny afternoon.
Tomorrow will be much like today, with the addition of a few snowflakes. Bill Murray will not yet get the girl.
But it will warm up a bit for Thursday and the weekend, with highs in the upper 30s.
That’s normal for this time of year, which means it’s abnormal for this crazy month. By our count there have been only four January days with roughly average temperatures.
By January’s end, if the forecast holds, there will have been 15 days where the temperature hit the teens or lower.
That’s the most since 2004, according to Steve Fybish, a weather-statistics obsessive whom we consult on such things.
What weather wonders will February hold, we wonder. Stay tuned.
Here’s what else you need to know today.
COMMUTE
Subways: No delays. Check latest status.
Rails: O.K. Check L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.
Roads: Avoid the West Village - there’s a water main break near Greenwich Street. Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.
Alternate-side parking makes its triumphant return. Move your car.
Remember: Broadway is closed to traffic from 47th Street to 34th Street for Super Bowl festivities all week.
COMING UP TODAY
- Borough presidents discuss their priorities at a breakfast forum at the Yale Club. [Sorry, sold out]
- Training the next generation of weather obsessives: observation stations will be installed at two parochial schools on Staten Island so that their students can compare weather data.
- Giants cornerback Prince Amukamara signs autographs for students at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, where a football-themed exhibition is running. [$11]
- Cruel P.R. joke of the day: bikini-clad models and flight attendants host a beach party at Grand Central to promote traveling to Fort Lauderdale on JetBlue. 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. [Free]
- Christie’s Renaissance Week (the auction house, not the governor) begins with the sale of works by Goya (the painter, not the bean purveyor). 2 p.m. [Free]
- Hear what it was like to follow the trail of the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh from his first-ever biographer, at the Mid-Manhattan Library. 6:30 p.m. [Free]
- Anna Quindlen talks about her new book, “Still Life with Bread Crumbs,†with Katie Couric at the Barnes & Noble at Union Square. 7 p.m. but get there early. [Free, but book buyers get the best seats]
- A comedy show that promises to be “actually good†although it’s called “Back Fat.†At 61 Local in Cobble Hill in Brooklyn. 8:15 p.m. [Free, R.S.V.P.]
- VH1’s citywide Super Bowl warm-up continues with a show by Janelle Monáe at Lehman College in the Bronx. [Sold out, but live-streamed and telecast around 11 p.m.]
IN THE NEWS
- Mayor de Blasio pleaded his case in Albany for a tax increase to pay for pre-K, saying it would provide “predictable and consistent†revenue, unlike a competing pre-K proposal put forth by the governor. [New York Times]
- Despite crashes, derailments and equipment woes, Metro-North’s ridership reached a record high last year. [Daily News]
- You can still get Super Bowl tickets, for as little as $1,150. [Daily News]
- Someone dumped a duffel bag of live boa constrictors outside an auto body shop in Brooklyn. [New York Post]
- Scoreboard: Raptors nip Nets, 104-103. Bruins maul Islanders, 6-3.
AND FINALLY…
Pete Seeger, who died on Monday at 94, was not exactly secretive about his left-wing leanings.
But when Communist-hunters in Congress asked him about a 1947 show in the Bronx, Mr. Seeger clammed up.
The concert had been listed in the Daily Worker, a Communist paper: “Tonightâ€"Bronx, hear Peter Seeger and his guitar, at Allerton Section housewarming.â€
(The Allerton neighborhood in the Bronx was home to several Communist groups.)
The listing was mentioned when Mr. Seeger was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955.
“May I ask you whether or not the Allerton Section was a section of the Communist Party?†said his interrogator.
“Sir, I refuse to answer that question, whether it was a quote from The New York Times or The Vegetarian Journal.â€
He was found in contempt of Congress.
Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.
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