By Patrick Hedlund and Carla Zanoni
MANHATTAN — It seems fall left early this year.
After balmy 50 and 60 degree days, the city braced for an early winter freeze as the first snow of the season began falling late Saturday morning, with a high of just 43 degrees forecast.
Half an inch of accumulation is possible in Manhattan, according to AccuWeather.
The snow will be accompanied by winds of up to 28 miles per hour, with a low of 33 expected Saturday night and into Sunday morning.
A drift of tweets about the snow came down on Twitter Saturday as Manhattan residents from downtown to Inwood were awed by the snowfall.
"Snowing giant flakes over green leaves in #Inwood. This is the view out my window. Crazy!," tweeted uptown resident Nathan Winstead.
"Snow in the East Village!," tweeted Gala Darling.
The city's Office of Emergency Management issued a hazardous travel advisory Friday for the impending conditions, which include up to two inches of rain and three inches of wet snow throughout the city, as well as wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour.
OEM's travel warning, which stays in effect for Saturday afternoon and evening, advised motorists to drive slowly and use major highways and thoroughfares, and for pedestrians to bundle up with extra layers and avoid slippery surfaces.
Sunday will see sunny skies and a high near 47 degrees, according to AccuWeather.
On Friday afternoon, New Yorkers reacted with indifference to the forecast as the sun still shone.
"My boss told me this morning," said Jose Alvarado, 31, an employee at the Open Pantry grocery store in the East Village, adding that he was prepared to shovel and still had salt left over from last winter.
"It'll just be a little rain. It's too early for snow."
Upper West Sider Bobby Lyle, 36, said he saw flurries in New Jersey Thursday, and didn't like the idea of the white stuff coming so soon.
"I'd like to have a fall and be able to enjoy it. It was cold as hell this morning," he said.
But he didn't expect the snow to have much of an impact.
"It'll probably be some flurries, and it won't even stick," he added.
The early-winter flurries are part of a larger storm sweeping across the Northeast, bringing the possibility of heavy snowfall stretching from West Virginia up to southern New England.
