The cold plunge that has enveloped New York City and the Northeast for weeks has many well-heeled residents coping the best way they know how: spending money.
At Madison Avenue Furs & Henry Cowit Inc. in Manhattan's Garment district, $1,500 mink jackets and raccoon coats are selling at unusual levels for the doldrum weeks of winter. Spa appointments for sauna and jacuzzi treatments across the city are surging. And four-figure "mercy trips" to warm destinations have normally cost-conscious travelers pulling out their credit cards.
In New York City, a nine-day stretch of below freezing temperatures from late January into early February was the longest since 2018, according to the National Weather Service. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared last week that local temperatures were colder than some parts of Antarctica.
The weather has come with grave costs. More than two dozen people died during the stretch of subfreezing temperatures, city officials said. And higher heating bills will stretch budgets for many, as National Grid has warned customers of unusually high heating bills.
In local stores, the cold spurred demand for winter essentials from Uniqlo Heattech items to snow pants, even as consumers reined in discretionary spending more broadly. And though the long weekend is forecast to bring slightly warmer temperatures, those tired of the cold are making last-minutes escapes to warmer destinations.
Alex Berman, 24, a marketing strategist who lives in New York, spent much of the January cold stretch in Miami, visiting her brother with her parents. All told, she said their trip cost around $5,000 for flights and lodging, excluding their rental car, spa and restaurant bills.
"I honestly don't remember a winter that's this cold," Berman said. In two weeks, she's splurging on another trip to the sunny Dominican Republic with her grandfather.
Travelers from cities affected by this year's cold front, including New York, Chicago and Boston, are fueling a surge in bookings to warmer destinations, said Jamie Lane, the chief economist and senior vice president of analytics at AirDNA, a short-term rental data analytics firm. Short-term rentals in Sarasota, Florida, and Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic saw a 31% jump in December and January compared with a year earlier, according to AirDNA data.
The trips come as average airfares in January for urban consumers hit $279.69, up 6.5% from last month's busy holiday season, according to CPI data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
For others, investing in warmer pieces of clothing was their way to fight the cold. Cinthia Mendez, 30, spent $2,400 on a mink fur coat as an upgrade to her winter gear. While she already had a heavy-duty Canada Goose jacket, the paralegal from New York wanted a nicer option that would be warm enough for the trek to dinner spots across Manhattan.
"The mink coat makes me feel warm and confident," Mendez said.
Sales at clothing and accessories stores nationally were up over 9% year-over-year in January -- and a slight month-over-month improvement after a strong holiday season, according to data from the CNBC/National Retail Federation Retail Monitor. The record-low temperatures have driven more customers into winter gear establishments. At Madison Avenue Furs & Henry Cowit, where fur coats sell from $300 to $40,000, owner Larry Cowit said sales in January were up 20% from the same month last year.
"We were very active even before the storm, but with the cold we had this year I'm selling furs I haven't in years like beaver and raccoon coats," Cowit said. "It's the coldest winter we've had in 20 years and fur is very nice to have when it's this cold."
Sales at restaurants in the New York Metro area were down by almost 20% year-over-year the week the snowstorm hit in January, while retail activity was down 7.2%, according to the Fiserv Small Business Index. Instead, the low temperatures kept people cooped up at home and stocking up on groceries. Foot traffic to restaurants and retail stores across the storm-impacted Northeastern states trailed, while activity at grocery stores spiked, according to data from Placer.ai.
Others have been resorting to warmer options closer to home, like the local spa. After the snow and cold temperatures kept her indoors most days during the past few weeks, Alena Coats, a 26-year-old nurse, treated herself to a spa day at the Bathhouse in Manhattan. The weather has also pushed her to use ride-hailing applications more, "so I can be in a warm car," she said.
QC New York Spa, located in Governor's Island, saw a 12% increase in sales in January compared with last year, according to managing director Daniela Masala. Inga Gordon, a manager at Great Jones Spa in East Village, estimated as much as a 20% increase in visits to the spa's water lounge with a jacuzzi, steam room and sauna. Passes for the lounge start at $60, and massages, scrubs and other treatments are around $150 to $300.
"We definitely saw a spike during the cold weather since we do have a really hot sauna and nice, warm jacuzzi," Gordon said. "We transform the cold New York into a sunny island."