Southern New England Blizzard of 2026

 A widespread and high impact blizzard is expected to transpire and impact all of southern New England, beginning during the evening of Sunday, February 22, however, the worst of the storm impacts will be overnight Sunday into Monday afternoon. 

Technical discussion:

As of Saturday morning, zonal flow was in place across the Northeastern United States, however, shortwave energy was quickly diving south across Canada and into the northern Plains:

As this energy continues diving southeast across the northern Plains this will result in a rapidly amplifying trough with the development of a closed off circulation at 500mb digging into the base of the trough Sunday morning with a 100+ knot jet jet set to round the base of the trough:

The result will be cyclogenesis (surface low pressure development) off the Delmarva Sunday morning:

 A continuous feed of shortwave energy is forecast to feed into the main energy Sunday evening and Sunday night. This is going to result in explosive strengthening of the low pressure as it track northeast and passing south and east of Long Island:

Forecast models show an extremely potent low-level jet developing Sunday night into Monday morning with 70+ knots at 850mb (~5,000 feet above the ground) overspreading southern New England from the east. This is going to transport a large amount of moisture from the Atlantic into the storm, yielding heavy precipitation:

In addition, winds at 925mb (about 2,500 feet above the ground) strengthen to 50-60 knots and even 70-80 knots across coastal southeast Connecticut, coastal Rhode Island, and far southeastern Massachusetts. With forecast soundings exhibiting a well-mixed boundary layer, this will result in the potential for widespread damaging wind gusts with blizzard conditions, and potential for numerous power outages, especially along the coast.

As the system undergoes rapid intensification south of Long Island, this will become an extremely potent and vertically stacked storm. With southern New England on the north and northwest side of the developing closed low-level and mid-level circulations, a band of extremely heavy snowfall will push south to north across the region along with very strong winds. 

Anyways, I could go much deeper into all the science and fun stuff but let's get to the forecast:

• Snow showers and light snow overspread Connecticut and parts of Rhode Island Sunday afternoon and then into Massachusetts during the evening. 
• Snow will fall light-to-moderate at times Sunday night across the region but really begin to increase in intensity during the pre-dawn hours Monday.
• Extremely heavy snowfall with very strong winds impact the region Monday morning through the afternoon. Heavier snow may persist across northeast Massachusetts into the late afternoon or early evening.
• DO NOT TRAVEL MONDAY. Conditions will be extremely dangerous. Snowfall rates of 3-4 inches per hour are likely during the height of the storm to go along with winds gusting upwards of 50+ mph yielding near-zero visibility. Roads will be impassible as crews will not be able to keep up with the rates.
• Winds inland gusting 30-50 mph with gusts 50-70 mph across parts of the Connecticut Shoreline, coastal Rhode Island, and far southeast Massachusetts. Not only will this yield blizzard conditions, but this will yield numerous power outages and downed tree limbs. 

Below is my forecast:

Significant Snowstorm to Impact southern New England Sunday, January 25, 2026

A strong Arctic cold front is currently moving across the deep South, mid-Atlantic, and Northeast, ushering in bitterly cold arctic temperatures well into the deep South and East Coast. As of this writing, a shortwave trough was digging across the western United States with a closed 500mb low nearing Baja, California increasing ascent across the deep South, resulting in rain showers blossoming in central Texas. As the Arctic front continues sliding south towards the Gulf Coast, colder air will drain into the mid-South with an abundance of Pacific moisture overriding this cold air and low pressure development. The result will be a high impact winter storm across the mid-South tonight into Sunday with a large area of heavy snow and wintry mix with a narrow area of significant icing. 

This abundance of moisture lifts east-northeast across the country Saturday night into Sunday, moving into a deep Arctic airmass. Low pressure is expected to rapidly intensity off the Virginia coast as it slides south of Long Island. 

As the surface low continues strengthening and an 850mb low develops within the Northeast (there are uncertainties as to where this exactly occurs), a strong easterly low-level develops across the region which will transport an abundance of moisture off the Atlantic into the cold, Arctic airmass across the region, resulting in rapidly developing precipitation with increasing intensity.

Strong warm air advection will help to promote intense 850mb frontogenesis late Sunday afternoon and into the overnight, this will result in a several hour period of very heavy snowfall to push southwest to northeast across the region.

In fact, vertically averaged 800-600mb frontogenesis from the 12z run of the NAM Friday morning indicates the potential for an extremely potent band of heavy snow to lift south to north across the region:

This would indicate the potential for snowfall rates to range between 1-2 inches per hour during the peak of the storm with rates potentially even closer to 2.5-3 inches per hour. With a deep cold air mass in place the dendritic snow growth zone is expected to be very deep and with sufficient lift throughout the dendritic snow growth zone snow will be very light and fluffy with ratios averaging around 14:1 to 15:1 and potentially even briefly as high as 20:1 during peak intensity! 

Storm Impacts:

• Light snow begins to break out from southwest to northeast across the region, beginning within southwest Connecticut by mid-Monday morning and northeast Massachusetts by early afternoon. 
• The heaviest snow occurs in a window from about 1 PM to 1 AM 
• starting earlier in southwestern areas and later in northeast areas with intensity winding down earlier in southwestern areas and later in northeastern areas
• Snowfall rates peaking between 1 to 2 inches per hour and perhaps even 2-2.5 inches per hour for brief periods.
• A continuing feed of shortwave energy, plus the left exit of an intense upper-level jet streak, combined with continued development of the storm as it lifts away from the region may result in a narrow band of heavy snow persisting across northeast Massachusetts well into Monday morning, thus leading to the area of highest amounts. 
• There is potential for some sleet to mix in along the southern coast, maybe even a bit inland, however, this is not expected to greatly influence potential snowfall totals, however, this is something which needs to be monitored.

Below are my thoughts: