New Yorkers will hear the rumble of snow plows on their streets Sunday, if the forecasters are right. They can also track where, when, and how often those plows have visited their blocks.
Snow will start falling early Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service, and continue through Monday afternoon, with the heaviest accumulation predicted on Sunday afternoon and evening. City officials have said the city is well-prepared for the snow, especially for keeping roadways — from highways to quiet side streets – clear and as safe as possible.
A fleet of 2,200 snow plows, which Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday described as “the nation’s largest snow fighting operation,” will be dispatched when two inches of snow have accumulated, likely on Sunday morning, the mayor said.
With plows expected to start their rounds in the wee hours of the morning, New Yorkers might not know exactly when their street was last cleared, or if their route to work has been plowed. But each truck is outfitted with a GPS tracking device so the city knows where they’ve been and when, and the public can track them too.
PlowNYC, an official New York City government website, offers a live map of every street in the city to show where plows have been and when. A color-coded map, searchable by address, indicates how long ago a street was plowed in three-hour intervals. Green means it was plowed 0-3 hours ago, blue 1-3 hours, and so on.
As of Friday evening, the map showed that major roads like the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and parts of Queens Boulevard, Jerome Avenue and Atlantic Avenue had been “visited” hours earlier, likely by brining trucks that spray a salt-and-water solution to help prevent snow from accumulating and ice from forming.
PlowNYC only starts working after 2 inches have accumulated and plows have been dispatched, and the website notes that the data can be inaccurate or incomplete “due to the passage of time, changing circumstances, sources used, and the nature of collecting comprehensive information.”
The site also notes that freshly-plowed roads will not snow blacktop right away. New Yorkers can file snow- and ice-clearing complaints online or by calling 311, though individual plowing requests can’t be responded to until after a storm has passed.
Meanwhile, plowing operations are monitored by officials using the relatively new “BladeRunner 2.0” program. The system, introduced in 2023, allows the city to track plows and salt spreaders in real time.
Inconsistent or delayed plowing has been a sore spot for New Yorkers and mayors in the past, as some neighborhoods were left covered in snow for longer than others. BladeRunner was designed to avoid that.
“Internally, we have something called BladeRunner 2.0,” Mamdani said Friday. “And this is to ensure that no New Yorker is made to feel that, depending on the zip code or their neighborhood, they’re going to receive a different level of service. You’re going to receive the same level of service across the city.”
Though thousands of DSNY workers will be working hard to keep the roads clear, Mamdani urged New Yorkers to avoid traveling on Sunday and Monday if at all possible. The National Weather Service issued the same advice.
“I want to encourage New Yorkers to do something we don’t often have the luxury of doing, which is take a breath and stay home,” he said. “Stay indoors, stay off the roads, watch the snow come down, watch the worst possible reality TV show you can find and take some time away from the roads.”
