Blizzard of 2026 Retrospective & Verification
- JDJweather
- 12 hours ago
- 3 min read
The Blizzard of 2026 turned out to be the second historic level snowfall we've seen this season. High winds, heavy snowfall and verified blizzard conditions blasted the state of Connecticut and most of Southern New England and the Tri-State Area. After all was said and done a large area of a foot or more of snow blanketed the region with some areas picking up two to three feet of snow. The highest amount reported was in Fall River, MA at 41"! This blizzard caused severe disruption to traffic and tens of thousands of people were left without power for days. The absolute worst conditions were felt outside of Connecticut around SE Massachusetts and Long Island. Let's take a look at some of the snowfall totals, winds and blizzard conditions across the region.
Winds & Blizzard Conditions
We forecasted winds to be in the range of around 40-65mph+ across the state with the worst being in the southeast corner. Winds did in fact gust to 40-65mph and along with heavy snowfall caused blizzard conditions after midnight into the early morning hours. The worst of the blizzard was felt after midnight to around 8AM. A blizzard is defined as falling and blowing snow reducing visibility to 1/4mi or less and winds gusting to 35mph for 3 hours or more. A verified blizzard was met at multiple airport sites across Southern New England and the Tri-State Area. Here's a look at maximum wind gusts across Southern CT and our forecast.
Connecticut Snowfall Totals
Our final forecast for the state of Connecticut was 1-2 feet with 8-12" in the northern and NW part of the state. This verified well for about 90% of the state. The 8-12" region was a bit further east around the CT river valley and 91. The SE corner eclipsed two feet and fell a bit over the range with some 24-31" amounts reported.
Lower Northeast Snowfall Totals
With these large wound up intense nor'easter there is always winners and losers with a more narrow area of heavy snowfall that drops off rapidly to the north and west. This was absolutely the case with this system as the far western and northern area of our forecast region picked up as little as 3-6" of snow. On the other hand there was a very intense band in SE MA and over Long Island and Lower Hudson Valley. This area picked up well over 2 feet of snow with some areas approaching and exceeding three feet of snow. While the majority of the area fell within our range of 1-2 feet there should have been an area of 2-3 feet across SE MA, Long Island and LHV. We included a text of locally 2 feet+ in those areas but that wasn't quite enough. Overall we verified well for most of the area, especially CT, but the fringes NW and SE fell above and below our ranges.
Here is the snowfall totals for the Southern New England & the Tri-State Area. If you would like to see more snowfall maps, radar, satellite and images related to the storm you can check out the dedicated page. You can also check out our Winter 25-26 page for all the storms this season and season-to-date snowfall.
-JDJ
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