Matthew Gross

Happy Hurricane Season to all who celebrate!

If you are a meteorologist who is posting 120-hour+ model snow maps for social media interaction, what you are really saying is that you don't value your degree as much as the dopamine hit for views.

If you're looking for one last dose of winter in the northeast, the best shot may be around March 16th / 17th. A ridge tries to reform in the west, a bunch of little systems race across North America in the mid range before this period, which could potentially clog up the flow, and there should be plenty of vorticity to play with over the eastern half of the country. However, even with these factors in place, I'd bet on something messy rather than major. With the general flow we have in the jet stream right now, it's just going to be incredibly difficult to get any sort of significant energy to bundle in the southeast U.S. and do any real digging east of the Mississippi River. The Euro kind of shows it well here today at 12z as the overall look is relatively favorable, but too much energy races north out ahead, and any southern stream energy trying to trail the northern vort tilting negative is late to the party. This will keep evolving in the coming days and there's a ton of shortwaves between now and then that can keep changing the flow, but this is the window to keep an eye on if things align. As is always the case in weather, we'll have to wait and see.

The theme of the winter continues! Models are trending colder and further south as we get closer to an event. The GFS is now featuring straight up snow along the I-90 corridor from Albany to Boston and has freezing surface temperatures getting dammed to the Connecticut coastline by late Thursday night.

Much of the country experienced its warmest winter on record while the population centers of the northeast experienced their coldest winter in many, many years. This is consistent with the general trend we've been seeing of late: Winters across the northern hemisphere are getting warmer, but if you get in those pockets where it's below average in any given season, the conditions can be incredibly severe.

@wxmann You would've had people tweeting from inside the buildings on 9/11. Hard to even comprehend that timeline.

Sometimes I wonder what Twitter would've been like if it existed in the 2000's with 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Great Recession all happening within a 7-year span.

Looking ahead, we should make steady progress towards spring in the eastern U.S. through the first third of March. The pattern largely relaxes and gives us a bunch of little, disorganized events in the eastern U.S. over the next seven days with each one getting milder than the last. By the 10th / 11th time period (as Liam shows here), there might even be widespread spring like warmth. The big question now is if winter tries to fight back for one last brief hurrah in the middle of the month, and if it does, do we time one big clash of conditions for a classic March storm? The ducks should be on the pond once we get beyond March 12th, but way too early to tell if they get in a row.

@_jwall Is that 2010 rating combining the two back to back systems?

Feb Blizzard Verdict: RSI 9.69, Category 3. Ranked 17 in “all-time” Northeast storms by RSI. No storm of the century… Contenders: 2010: RSI 17.827, Category 4 2016: RSI 17.758, Category 4

Poor data sampling. Lack of balloon launches, loss of aircraft data inclusion, due to budget cuts. Also: look at a guidance run. Look a vapor imagery. Does it match? No? Then throw it out. We are lost. We see a model run & attempt to force the weather to it. This is backwards.

@oldscarf1stweek It's even completely different than this map, which while almost certainly underdone, still has every single location in this black circle at 30 inches or higher. ALL OF THEM! A swath or red should be reflected here on the NESIS map, and it's a fraction of the size.

Wow this looks absolutely nothing like the NWS snow total report map

@wx_brady @Danbury_WX Even using this NWS map (which I still believe is underdone in spots), literally every last report in the black circle I drew here is at 30 inches or higher. Every! Single! One! By that measure, there should be a red area of this size on the NESIS map, and it's not even close.

@HurricaneAddict @Danbury_WX Those reporting that are not filtered at all, so that includes any and all inaccurate measurements measured in drifts. Here is the nws map that had quality control done to the reports. While the nesis map still has some inaccuracies it’s significantly more accurate then that map

Why are the CT totals so inaccurate? No 4 to 10 bubble in Danbury. NONE.

I mean, where is the red coloring anywhere in southeast Massachusetts?

This NESIS map is so unbelievably terrible, inaccurate, and incomplete that I seriously have to wonder if they intentionally tanked it in their quest to get more people to switch to using the RSI system. There's no way anybody remotely competent could swing and miss that badly!

@seckhardt That NESIS map looks dramatically underdone in several spots! To not have any 30+ in area over southeast Mass is laughable.

Strange that the blizzard has already been rated on the NESIS but the January storm still has not. ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitor…

@burgwx And overall the colormap is gorgeous, well selected, and fits with the season. Just think an exclamation point of sorts is warranted for crossing that last gate.

@HurricaneAddict Thanks! I have the raw data available so I can easily change the colormap or color levels.

Now that more observations have arrived, here's my updated hand-drawn contour analysis for snow accumulation from this week's blizzard:

Snowfall analysis maps for the #Blizzard2026 @BradyBGWX @NWSNewYorkNY @NWSBoston @NWSNewYorkNY

@SurfSkiWeather I don’t know if this helps for comparison, but here’s what my mom’s childhood home in Tiverton, RI looked like a day after ‘78 settled. Snow clearly compacted after that event as well.

CPez on a mission: "Does This Look Like Three Feet" of snow? Man with ruler looking for 3 feet of snow near TF Green youtube.com/watch?v=zC20vY…

Breaking: Hurricane #Melissa now tied for the strongest storm ever in the Atlantic with winds upgraded to 190 mph winds. Tied with #Hurricane Allen in 1980! New info comes from NHC post season analysis.

@ilikejaysotatum @NWSBoston I'm north of Route 1 so maybe that's the difference. Elevation obviously goes up quickly.

@HurricaneAddict @NWSBoston That crazy, I live in southern westerly and couldn’t find any depth more than 20 inches, wind was whipping pretty hard tho so maybe it’s all drifted I’m not sure

[February 23rd, 2026 Blizzard Snow Totals] 📏Here's a look at all the ❄️snow reports we received from yesterday's historic blizzard! Thank you very much to everyone who submitted their snowfall reports. #MAwx #RIwx #CTwx