New York’s 701-day drought broke with an inch of grey ice – is this the end of proper snow in the city? | Emma Brockes

I miss the mornings after a blizzard, when everything is transformed. It's not a dramatic sign of climate change - but it's certainly not normal

It hadn't snowed in New York City for 701 days - a record - so when it started to come down on Tuesday, children's jaws dropped like kids seeing bananas for the first time after the second world war. Older people, if they had lived in New York for more than a few years, promptly ruined the moment by pointing out it wasn't real snow, there wasn't enough for school to be cancelled, and it was unlikely to accumulate sufficiently for sledding. Ah, the magic of adulthood.

It is alarming to see the environment change in one's lifetime, and this isn't anything close to a lifetime. Even a decade ago, New Yorkers were used to the city shutting down for a week at a time when the latest massive snow storm came in. In February 2010, a total of 36in fell in the city, part of a winter of 51in of snow. In 2006, a blizzard dumped 26.9in of snow on the area, a record rivalled 10 years later when so much snow fell across the state that the governor briefly banned travel. The cold front on Tuesday, by contrast, dumped, or rather lightly dusted, Central Park with about an inch of snow, followed almost immediately by rain. By the time schools let out, grumbling parents forced to head to the park watched in amazement as their snow-deprived children screamed with joy at the grey chips of ice.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist