T-Shirts Worn in Lieu of Coats in Warm City Weather

In Midtown yesterday, it was evident that the recent bout of unusually warm weather is beginning to affect people's perceptions of winter.

Some wore scarves but not jackets; others discarded all the trappings of the season and simply wore T-shirts.

Not that yesterday was a record breaker for warmth: The mercury in Central Park topped out at 49, 6 degrees above normal but 11 short of the record set in 1876. Monday was the record-setting day, when the temperature climbed to 60 at La Guardia Airport, shattering the record of 50 set in 1998.

For Ali Sayyed, a fitness instructor at a Bally's gym, any day warmer than 35 degrees is T-shirt weather.

"Anything over that, I go outside in a T-shirt," he said.

He was outside yesterday afternoon buying bananas from a fruit seller, Mohammed Hussein, on the corner of Sixth Avenue and 43rd Street. Mr. Hussein said cold weather and the high costs of fruit keep profits meager in winter, one reason he says he is the only fruit seller on the West Side of Manhattan between 59th and 34th streets.

"I love warm weather," he said, pointing to people sitting on nearby benches. "People are hanging out outside. People are sitting around. When they do that, they buy fruit."

So far this year, temperatures have dipped below freezing only three times, according to the National Weather Service. Normally by January, the jet stream is blowing cold air from Canada through the steel and concrete canyons of the city.

"Typically, by this time of year, things have shifted around where the northern branch of the jet stream has taken over, but that hasn't happened yet, and it doesn't look like it will happen soon," a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, Adrienne Leptich, said.

Instead, warm air from the west and south has kept temperatures high. Warm days are expected for the rest of the week, with the warmest weather coming Friday, when temperatures could reach 60.

Winter's absence has been noticed at the ice skating rink at Bryant Park.

"If it was 32 degrees, Mother Nature would freeze it for me," the assistant manager at the rink, Ron Kraut, said.

Instead, a network of barrels, compressors, and hoses has been working overtime since November to pump a mixture of water and antifreeze, chilled to 8 degrees, onto the rink, which closes Monday. Mr. Kraut said the system can keep the rink icy in 70-degree temperatures. It's rain he worries about.

"When rain is headed this way, we're looking at it all the time," he said.

With rain forecast for today and temperatures expected to reach 54, Mr. Kraut will have his hands full just so others can enjoy a taste of winter, wherever they can find it.