With another much hyped nor’easter playing out today, I thought I’d gather some resources to help myself and fellow New Yorkers while away the hours while we wait for the winds to die down.

Travel to and from: Planning to try and escape the weather? Expected to make an airport run to pick up your mother-in-law? Check to see if your flight is gonna get off the ground or if hers is gonna be rerouted.

• National Weather Service is happy to serve up weather conditions at
  Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark.
• Or you could venture over to the FAA site where they have flight delay info the Northeastern States. I’m not saying either of these government agencies are the most comprehensive source or even the most correct (they are government agencies after all) but they are official.
• By far the most accurate and comprehensive sight I’ve ever found for flight delay and arrivals information is FlightArrivals.com. It’s a great site with comprehensive real time (or as near as can be) arrival/departure/delay information for commercial airline flights across the country. Use them and you won’t be sorry.

Knowledge is Power: But let’s say you’re here and you’re here for the duration. You need to know how to arm yourself (in the apparel and accessory sense) every day, so what and where will you find weather you can count on.

Well, the first thing to accept is that most of the weather predictions are crap. They are – at BEST – educated guesses, useful in their way but never a guarantee. I usually get an quick weather overview from 1010 WINS am (it’s on every ten minutes or so) and then look for more details on weather.com or weather underground.

• I like weather underground a bit more solely because the pages are so top heavy with ads that take forever to load an pop-ups (and pop-unders and other things) that annoy me early in the morning.
• Still, weather.com does have the hour-by-hour details that are REALLY useful so you know how many layers to wear. And finally, a weather watching secret weapon – traffic cams.
• Newyorkology has a fantastic list of traffic cams which are good for checking traffic, of course but awfully handy for assessing the true weather conditions outside and to see what your fellow NYers are wearing to fend off the elements.

Errands are for other people: No one wants to go out in bad weather and honestly, except in very particular circumstances, a lot of that venturing out can be avoiding thanks to New York being the delivery capital of the world. You won’t run out of anything, miss a deadlines or have to deny yourself the joys of a full on restaurnat meal simply because the heavens have opened and the sidewalks are covered in ice.

You wangled the OK to work from home but now what? Of course, you’ll email a copy to the group secretary (and a copy to yourself) but the boss wants hard copy and he wants it by the end of the day. But the sleet is coming down sideways and wasn’t this the weather you were avoiding by working at home in the first place? Stay dry and let one of the many messengers services in the city pass on your presentation for you. It’s efficient and darned near cost effective too if you imagine the time and money involved in getting a cab in weather like that – public transport? Have you seen what happens to buses and subways in this city when the weather turns evil?). Wander over to your favorite search engine and punch in “courier service”,” bike messenger” and “New York” and you’ll be awash in choices. Places like Checker Courier, NYMinute, Ryan Express and many others have published their service rates on their sites so you can look them over and decide for yourself how much staying home in these conditions is worth to you.

In out next installment: The Onionizaton of Apparel: Layering for success; Gourmet to Go: Food deliveries across Gotham