Biggest. Snowfall. Ever. Or, “The Poetry Of Wine And Soft Jazz”

If there were ever a time to use That. Annoying. Punctuation. Convention. it’s this:

The biggest winter storm in New York City history — destined for lionization as the Blizzard of ’06 — buried the region and much of the Northeast yesterday under blowing, drifting, thigh-high snows that crippled transportation and commerce, knocked out power and disrupted life for millions in 14 states.

After two months of humbug winter, the region awoke to a milk-white morning and an awesome storm that exceeded all forecasts, with snowfalls that transformed straw-drab landscapes into February postcards and brought out skiers, sledders and other wonderlanders.

Plows were out in force, too, and working around the clock. But there was so much snow that only major arteries were expected to be open for the start of the workweek today, and officials forecast sluggish commuting for anyone who failed to take mass transit. The storm — a great Crab nebula 1,200 miles long and 500 miles wide on satellite images and a ghostly apparition on the ground — crawled up the Eastern Seaboard overnight with winds that gusted up to 60 miles an hour, and cloaked the cities and countrysides from North Carolina to coastal Maine with 12 to more than 27 inches of snow, which broke or challenged records in many locales.

A total of 26.9 inches fell in Central Park, the most since record-keeping began in 1869, the National Weather Service reported. In what weather experts called a remarkable and relentless fall that began late Saturday afternoon and ended late yesterday, it eclipsed the legendary blow of Dec. 26-27, 1947, which dropped 26.4 inches and killed 77 people. It also easily surpassed the memorable No. 3 and No. 2 storms, of Jan. 6-7, 1996, which left 20.2 inches, and March 12-14, 1888, the notorious Blizzard of ’88, which dropped 21 inches.

And Bah Humbug this — the storm wasn’t “technically” a blizzard:

Oddly, the record snowstorm in New York City was not technically a blizzard there, although it met the criteria on Long Island and elsewhere: winds of at least 35 miles an hour for three consecutive hours, and visibility of less than a quarter mile.

Whatever its official status in Gotham, the storm, a classic northeaster, was so powerful and the snow so deep that it seemed all but certain to be remembered as a blizzard. “We are talking about a technical definition,” said Jeff Tongue, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service at Brookhaven, N.Y.

And what conveys “cutting edge reporting from the best newspaper in the country” like the poetry of wine and soft jazz?

Central Park was a setting from a storybook. Children dragging parents dragging snowboards and sleds converged on all sides in a daylong migration. Large dogs galloped through the drifted meadows of the Great Lawn, and cross-country skiers glided among joggers gallomping in snowshoes.

For many indoors, it was a day to relax by a window, perhaps with a glass of wine and soft jazz on the radio, and take in the unreal loveliness of winter — the panes frosted like glass from Murano, the sills drifted with flourishes of lacework, and, out in the storm, dreamscapes of snow blowing down a street, curtains of snow falling in great sweeps, snow settling like peace in the parks and skeletal woodlands.

In an otherwise anemic winter filled with too many sunny days and too many clichés about spring, the storm elicited something more-or-less poetic from its admirers.

Meanwhile, instead of dithering over J.D. Salinger moments, the Post calls it like it sees it:

We were blown away.

The Great Whiteout of ’06 — the biggest, boldest, baddest snowstorm ever to bombard the city — dumped 26.9 inches of the white stuff on the Apple yesterday, an all-time record.

And the Daily News practically shits itself:

“People have to just relax, it’s just a little bit of snow,” said Dean Willis, of Brooklyn. “There will be toilet paper and milk in the stores on Monday.”

See also: Blizzard of 2006, mostly in Hunters Point, Queens.