Blizzard bomb cyclone buries NYC, grounding nearly all flights

Theresa Braine, New York Daily News on Feb 23, 2026

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NEW YORK — The Blizzard of ’26 reached bomb cyclone status overnight Sunday into Monday, as tristate residents awoke to a foot of snow, with more coming down.

By 7 a.m. Monday, 15 inches had fallen in New York City’s Central Park and at both LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports. Islip, Long Island, had received 22.5 inches, and 18.3 inches had fallen on Newark, N.J., the National Weather Service said.

Driving was forbidden on New York City streets until at least noon, school was canceled and travel was all but paralyzed up and down the East Coast as 2 to 3 inches an hour fell from New York to Massachusetts early Monday.

The Long Island Railroad had been suspended overnight and would stay that way for several more hours, Gov. Kathy Hochul told 1010 WINS. New Jersey Transit was also suspended on Monday “until conditions allow for a safe gradual resumption,” the service said.

Hochul said about 20,000 households were without power across New York and warned that there would probably be more. Massachusetts saw 214,389 power outages, and there were 128,238 outages in New Jersey, according to the tracking website Power Outage.

As of 8 a.m., nearly 90% of flights had been canceled at John F. Kennedy International Airport, while 98% of flights were canceled at LaGuardia Airport. Newark International Airport was also crippled, with 87% of its flights canceled, according to tracking site FlightAware. In all, more than 5,000 flights were canceled both in and out of the U.S., most of them in New York, New Jersey and Boston.

Wind gusts of 40 to 60 mph were expected to pummel the region through the morning hours, the National Weather Service said, ramping down through the afternoon into early evening. “Multiple bands of heavy snow” were expected to lash the area as they pivoted northwest off the ocean, the NWS said.

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