Blizzard of 2026: Records Shattered, Hundreds of Thousands Still Without Power

The Northeast is beginning the long process of digging out Tuesday morning after one of the most powerful winter storms in decades swept through the region, burying communities under record snowfall, knocking out power for hundreds of thousands, and grinding air travel to a near-total standstill.

The storm, widely being called the Blizzard of 2026, officially earned the label "bomb cyclone" through a process meteorologists call bombogenesis: a rapid, explosive drop in atmospheric pressure. Lower pressure means the atmosphere is essentially pulling air upward and inward, fueling stronger winds and more intense precipitation.

When a storm's central pressure drops by at least 24 millibars in 24 hours, it qualifies as a bomb cyclone. This system did just that, falling 25 millibars in that window and eventually bottoming out at 966 millibars at its most intense. For context, a typical sunny day sits around 1013 millibars; a reading of 966 puts this storm in the same pressure territory as a strong Category 1 hurricane. That staggering drop is what produced the screaming winds, near-zero visibility, and historic snowfall that paralyzed six states.

Record-Shattering Snow Totals