February 2026 OBS & Discussion

[donsutherland1]

8 minutes ago, Intensewind002 said:

I was 9 years old at the time of this storm. I definitely cried lol

I went to Cape May for the storm. There were near whiteout conditions.

[Volcanic Winter]

Out in just a grid fleece today, crazy how much one acclimatizes to the cold when it becomes truly significant with respect to the human body. 

Felt to me today at 34ish how 45 feels in a normal winter, just chilly. 

[gravitylover]

I went to a hoodie last week and no jacket this afternoon. 

[eduggs]

1 hour ago, CPcantmeasuresnow said:

But many of us don't live in NYC.

The normals in Orange County today are 35/15, on Feb 28 they are 41/20 a big difference from the UHI. Bring on a snowy February and March and let's stop talking about Spring on Feb 2. We're in the middle of a decent winter for the first time in four years, can't we just enjoy it.

All good points. But it's difficult to force the enjoyment when we're staring at such a bleak two weeks of modeling. After mid-Feb a sunny day inevitably feels like Spring, even on a cold day.

[the_other_guy]

Busted way high and one of my pipes finally unfroze! 36F currently

[winterwx21]

Had a high temp of 37 here today. It was nice to be able to go for a run outside this afternoon. Last week I used the exercise bike in the house all week because I don't like running in frigid weather. It felt pretty good out there today. 

[eduggs]

It's kind of impressive how the Euro OP manages to engineer a way to avoid snow for the next 15 days. Barely a dusting in 2+ weeks. And it has support from the other globals and ensembles. In November, sure... but early Feb?!

[donsutherland1]

The longest stretch of subfreezing days since 2017-18 ended today. The ECMWF weeklies show a distinct milder period of 1-2 weeks duration. Social media is suddenly abuzz about the warmth it has noticed. Still, there's no need to despair.

Winter 2025-2026 has already delivered some genuinely great moments. Although those moments might be in the past, they cannot be erased by the forecast moderation that lies ahead beginning around February 10th.

Some highlights:

• New York City experienced its coldest December-January period since 2014-2015.
• New York City saw an 11.4" snowfall with many areas outside the City picking up 12"-18".
• New York City has seen two highs in the teens and two lows in the single digits. Outside the City, numerous locations have experienced subzero lows.
• Ice and ice floes have reappeared in the Hudson River for the first time in years.

In a wider perspective, parts of the Great Lakes Region saw a record November daily snowfall, Toronto experienced its biggest snowstorm on record, and parts of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina enjoyed a generational snowstorm.

Nothing is cast in stone. Model skill beyond two weeks is low. Forecast patterns can change. Sometimes abruptly.

IMO, rather than riding an emotional roller-coaster with each turn of the models or allowing the most negative outcomes to drive winter's wonderful moments from memory, it's better to appreciate what we've already experienced and stay patient about what lies ahead.

Spring will come. It always does. But Winter 2025-2026 may still bring additional cold and snowfall, even if the models cannot currently see the cold and snow at the long lead times involved.

[steve392]

Man it got warm today.  Needed to put the a/c on in this torch

[nycsnow]

[donsutherland1]

Temperatures have begun to moderate. In New York City, the temperature broke above freezing for the first time since January 23. That was the longest such stretch since Winter 2017-2018.

Tomorrow and Wednesday will likely see highs in the lower to perhaps middle 30s. A few flurries are possible on Wednesday as a weak system drags a cold front across the region. Colder air will then return on Thursday. An even stronger surge of Arctic air could arrive for the weekend, possibly accompanied by some snow flurries or snow showers.

The persistent and often severely cold pattern could break near February 10th.

Overall, January 20th-February 3rd will likely be the coldest and perhaps snowiest two-week period this winter. The forecast WPO-/EPO-/AO-/PNA+ pattern is typically the coldest pattern in January and among the coldest during the first half of February. A persistently positive PNA will have above climatological risk of moderate or significant snowfalls. 

For perspective, the coldest two-week period this winter prior to January 20th was January 3-16, 2026 and January 4-17, 2026 with a mean temperature of 30.3°. The snowiest two-week period was December 14-27, 2025 when 7.2" of snow fell. Already, snowfall since January 20th has surpassed that figure.

The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was +0.1°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was -0.4°C for the week centered around January 28. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged -0.38°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged -0.57°C. La Niña conditions will likely continue into at least late winter.

The SOI was +24.02 today. 

The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) was -3.066 today. 

[eduggs]

The AI models have performed really well this winter IMO, especially synoptically. They vary run-to-run a lot less than their parent physics-based models. It's becoming less likely for a surprise snowstorm to appear inside 7 days. That's a good thing for forecast accuracy, but a discouraging thing when the forecast looks unfavorable. 

[Roger Smith]

Even if it doesn't snow again, this winter has passed 56 other winters for total snowfall (at 21.1" NYC). If it snows 3 more inches it will pass another eleven. If it snows another 6" it will pass a total of 80 (of 158) and be close to passing several more. My stats include a higher value for 1868-69 than just the snow measured Jan 1 to Apr 1869 as Dec 1868 was a cold month with coastal lows indicated on weather charts, so I assumed that winter made it to around 35" ... the median value for all winters is a bit lower than the mean by about one inch. 

Don could confirm this but I believe this winter could be ahead of 1887-88 at this point of the winter severity index. It probably will stay ahead for a while but I don't like its chances during March. 

[Volcanic Winter]

I mean all said and done as modeled this will end up a solid month block of below normal to very below normal, in the heart of winter. We only capitalized on one major storm but it was a good storm, surprisingly for all despite concerns about NYC / CNJ to me. This next arctic blast looks intense and I’m going to enjoy it one last time, get our fireplace going and make hot chocolate with my wife from scratch. If after we go fully mild through the last two weeks of Feb, nobody can say this wasn’t a fascinating winter that altered the crappy tempo of the 2020’s.

I got my money’s worth even if it wasn’t a prolific snowfall season. Still chipping my parents out of their encased ice palace in Seaside too, lol - I’m going to need an oil change and 120k service on my body soon. 

[donsutherland1]

13 minutes ago, Roger Smith said:

Even if it doesn't snow again, this winter has passed 56 other winters for total snowfall (at 21.1" NYC). If it snows 3 more inches it will pass another eleven. If it snows another 6" it will pass a total of 80 (of 158) and be close to passing several more. My stats include a higher value for 1868-69 than just the snow measured Jan 1 to Apr 1869 as Dec 1868 was a cold month with coastal lows indicated on weather charts, so I assumed that winter made it to around 35" ... the median value for all winters is a bit lower than the mean by about one inch. 

Don could confirm this but I believe this winter could be ahead of 1887-88 at this point of the winter severity index. It probably will stay ahead for a while but I don't like its chances during March. 

1887-88 is ahead mainly because it was several degrees colder through January even as it had slightly less snowfall than the current winter.

[EastonSN+]

34 minutes ago, nycsnow said:

Not saying THIS will happen, however bowling ball season is approaching.

[SnoSki14]

It would be disappointing if we didn't get at least 30" for the season given how cold its been. 

Getting no snow in Feb & March (which I highly doubt) would be a major shutout. 

[nycsnow]

[NEG NAO]

14 minutes ago, EastonSN+ said:

Not saying THIS will happen, however bowling ball season is approaching.

you should have said "Not saying this will even appear on the 0Z run" - not that there is anything wrong with that...

[Roger Smith]

This very cold outbreak being shown on maps for Sunday-Monday has potential to deliver one of the coldest set of low max and min seen around the northeast in decades. The source of the cold air is northern Quebec and the trajectory never crosses the Great Lakes (Hudson Bay either, although it is now frozen over anyway). Lake Ontario has temperatures in the 32-37 F range and Lake Erie is frozen so early stages of the onset with some of the air mass encountering those lakes will not modify much. Strong winds will reduce the potential for all-time lows in rural areas but will increase the potential for urban settings because the urban heat island is reduced considerably in windy weather -- the chilled air has no time to absorb the city's heat and differentials from city to suburbs to rural outlying areas is often no greater than what elevation alone might produce, certainly a smaller amount of urban heating than the usual 10-15 F deg on cold, clear and still nights. 

I looked at the thickness parameters and could see how NYC might stay below 10 F all day and dip below 0 F at night, -3 F would be the coldest I could imagine NYC getting. After the exceptional -17F in Dec 1917 and -15 F in Feb 1934, the benchmark lowest values are -8 (Feb 1943) and since then, -2 (Feb 1961, Feb 1963, Jan 1977, Jan 1985, Jan 1994) ... the only subzero reading after 1994 is the -1 F from Feb 2016. (it was also -1 in Dec 1980 and in Jan 1968 and 1976. Since 2016 the lowest reading at NYC is 2F on Jan 31, 2019 (matched by Feb 2015).

It would be quite spectacular to get below zero at all, let alone coldest since 1943 (83 winters ago). The winter of 1942-43 had two very cold readings, the other one in Dec 1942 (-3 F).

There have not been any sub-10 daily max values since the 9F of Jan 21, 1985. It was 10F in Jan 1994. 

Sub-10 maxima are quite rare in general, especially since 1943. Besides 1985, the only cases of a sub-10 maximum at NYC are these: 

 2F _ Dec 30, 1917

 3F _ no cases exist

 4F _ Dec 30 1880 ... Feb 5, 1918

 5F _ no cases exist

 6F _ Jan 24, 1882 ... Dec 31 1917

 7F _ Jan 3, 1879, ... Dec 20 1884 ... Feb 5 1886 ... Feb 10 1899 ... Feb 17 1896

 8F _ Jan 12, 1886 ... Feb 8 1895 ... Dec 29 1917 ... Jan 13 1912 ,,, Feb 9 1934 ... Dec 20 1942 ... Feb 15 1943

 9F _ Dec 21, 1871 ... Feb 2, 1881 ... Feb 11, 12 1899 ... Jan 13 1914 ... Jan 21 1985

10F _ Mar 5, 1872 ... Feb 7, 1875 ... Dec 29 and 31 1880 ... Dec 23 1883 ... Jan 28 1888 ... Feb 24 1894 ,,, Feb 6 1895 ... Jan 1 and 2, 1918 ... Feb 17, 1958 ... Jan 19 1994

Since 1994, 13F Jan 6 2018 is lowest ... even such notable cold months as Jan 1977 and Dec 1872 failed to set a 10 or lower max. 

Of course, the sub-10 F reading has to survive midnight highs at either end of the calendar day. The daylight hours of Jan 31, 1920 were probably sub-10F as well, for one example.     

Remarkably, the highest temperature from Feb 9 to 13 1899 was 11 F and that bitterly cold spell ended with the Blizzard of 1899 13th-14th. Dec 29 1917 to Jan 2 1918 never went higher than 10 F.  

[EastonSN+]

38 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:

It would be disappointing if we didn't get at least 30" for the season given how cold its been. 

Getting no snow in Feb & March (which I highly doubt) would be a major shutout. 

Meh you get used to it. Happened a few times when I was growing up.