Feb. 24, 2026 — Northeastern United States A bomb cyclone Nor’easter dumped 2 to 3 feet of snow across the Northeast, shattering snowfall records including 37.9 inches at Rhode Island’s T.F. Green International Airport and 32.8 inches in Providence, while causing more than 600,000 power outages at peak, nearly 8,000 flight cancellations and emergency travel bans in New York City and New Jersey, as the storm moved offshore Monday.
The February 2026 North American blizzard, also dubbed Winter Storm Hernando by Weather.com, formed February 20 and peaked February 23 with explosive deepening to 965 millibars, hurricane-force gusts up to 98 mph in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, thundersnow and zero visibility, according to Wikipedia and AP News.
Rhode Island saw its snowiest two-day total ever at 32.8 inches in Providence, surpassing the 1978 Blizzard’s mark, per NewsNation. Other records included 36.2 inches in Warwick, Rhode Island, and 31 inches at Islip Airport on Long Island, New York, as detailed by AP. Central Park in New York City recorded 19.7 inches.
Impacts included states of emergency in seven states, school closures, Amtrak cancellations and two fatalities in Maryland from a tree falling on a car. Power outages peaked above 511,000, with restoration delayed by heavy, wet snow and winds. Major highways like I-95 shut down, and blizzard warnings covered New York City, Boston and all New Jersey counties for the first time since the 1990s.
“Potentially the worst storm in 30 years. Stay off the roads.”
— New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, per Wikipedia.
Meteorologists attributed the extreme snowfall to a “Goldilocks” setup of ideal temperatures and storm track for maximum moisture from the Atlantic.
“It hit the ‘Goldilocks situation’ of just the right temperature for wet, heavy snow—any warmer and its precipitation wouldn’t have fallen as snow. Any colder and there wouldn’t have been as much moisture in the air to feed that snowfall.”
— Owen Shieh, National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center, quoted in AP News.
Live coverage from CNN, NBC News and Fox Weather tracked dropping outages and ongoing cleanup as the storm exited into Atlantic Canada. View AP’s photo gallery of snow-blanketed streets and shoveling efforts.
