February 24, 2026 — Providence, R.I. A bomb cyclone nor’easter, named Winter Storm Hernando, slammed the U.S. Northeast from Maryland to Maine on February 23-24, dropping a record 37.9 inches of snow in Providence and shattering the 1978 blizzard record of 28.6 inches at T.F. Green Airport. The storm brought blizzard conditions, hurricane-force winds, and widespread disruptions including power outages for over 571,000 to 650,000 customers, primarily in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware, and Rhode Island.
States of emergency were declared across the region, including in New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, prompting school closures, road bans, and transit shutdowns, according to NBC News live updates. More than 5,700 flight cancellations struck major airports, especially in the New York City area, with totals climbing above 11,000 as travel ground to a halt, per USA Today.
Treacherous conditions halted snow removal efforts in Providence, where three feet of snow piled up, while T.F. Green Airport recorded 32.8 inches, the snowiest two-day total on record. The Associated Press described it as a “classic, record-setting blizzard.”
A Reuters thread highlighted a map of outages with Massachusetts hardest hit, alongside school and transit closures in New York City and updates from local mayors. Central Park saw heavy accumulations, and CBS News reported on thousands of flight delays and cancellations in video footage from the East Coast.
The storm affected over 40 million people, dominating coverage due to its scale, as detailed in the Wikipedia entry and live blogs from CBS Boston.
