A man walks on the snow-covered footpath the day after a winter storm in New York yesterday. Photo / Leonardo Munoz, AFP
A man walks on the snow-covered footpath the day after a winter storm in New York yesterday. Photo / Leonardo Munoz, AFP
A nearly incomprehensible amount of snow fell on Providence, much of Rhode Island and the surrounding region this week.
The city recorded 37.9 inches (96.2cm) at T.F. Green International Airport, its official observation location from late Sunday through Monday (Monday and Tuesday NZT).
The tally demolished itsold snowstorm maximum of 28.6in (72.6cm) from the Blizzard of 1978 and may set a new state record.
It would be a shocking amount of snow falling just about anywhere in the Northeast, and the total observed in Providence is more common of locations farther inland, though even there it is quite a rarity.
While a number of historic storms top out somewhere at around 1m of snowfall, they rarely come so fast and furious and target a big city with their maximum impact.
A combination of ideal storm track for the area hit hardest, an unusually powerful low-pressure storm centre and increasing atmospheric moisture in a changing climate helped push the Blizzard of 2026 into the history books. This all happened despite its relatively short linger time in areas it snowed heavily.
So, why did it snow so much in Providence?
One key factor in the Providence blitz was the storm track.
When nor’easters pass over the benchmark, a geographical location at 40 degrees latitude and 70 degrees longitude, they tend to bring their biggest snows to the Interstate 95 corridor from D.C. to Boston.
This storm was a bit different.
Around midday Monday local time, it passed near 40 degrees latitude and 68 degrees longitude - about 160km east of the nor’easter benchmark.
That meant that the storm’s heaviest snow bands were also tugged east. Had the storm tracked over the benchmark, those same snow bands would have been closer to New York City, and Washington DC could have witnessed more snow. These two cities picked up 19.7in and 1in, respectively.
The historic nor'easter passed about 160km east of the benchmark, a geographical point that memorable nor'easters often pass near.
A very intense storm
Air pressure near the storm’s centre dipped as low as the 960s in millibars - central pressure comparable to a high-end Category 2 hurricane. It included a drop of more than 40 millibars over 24 hours, making it a “bomb cyclone”.
Many blockbuster snowstorms in the region dip closer to 980 millibars.
These extremely low pressures are expected to set records where they occurred and are a sign of an environment that can produce intense snow bands because big pressure differences over short distances drive strong winds that lift moisture into heavy, concentrated snowfall.
Sea temperature patterns
Because it has been such a cold winter in the US Northeast, coastal sea surface temperatures are well below average.
Storms feed off of sea surface temperature gradients, or areas of sharp sea temperature transitions.
Partly because that gradient was farther offshore than normal, the storm was steered farther out to sea.
Last year, an analysis by the Washington Post revealed that rising moisture flows over the past several decades have been associated with more extreme precipitation - consequences of a warming climate.
The state of Rhode Island is a hot spot where these two factors collide.
The blizzard was siphoning moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and the western Atlantic Ocean.
A more vaporous atmosphere in these moisture source regions may have played a role in the storm’s waterlogged nature.
Lack of atmospheric blocking
This storm moved along relatively quickly. In Providence, it snowed for 25 straight hours.
While that may sound like a lot, some nor’easters, such as the 100-hour snowstorm of 1969, stick around for much longer.
Despite prolific totals, this storm lacked a big, blocking ridge of high pressure to the north.
That type of patten can act as an atmospheric stop sign, causing slow-moving weather systems.
Cooler-than-average ocean temperatures near the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic may have pushed the blizzard's track a bit farther offshore.
It may be hard to imagine, but if there had been more atmospheric congestion, there probably would have been even more snow.
Snow totals around Providence were extreme
Even after some time to digest what happened, the snow tallies are still hard to comprehend.
A band of snow in excess of 61cm fell from the coastal region of central New Jersey northeastward across southeast Massachusetts. Parts of New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island also observed similar totals. At least 40 reports of 76cm or more were sent to the National Weather Service.
The city with the biggest total officially report was Providence, where 96.2cm fell in the storm, and 90.1cm of that occurred in one day alone.
Providence’s one-day tally of 35.5in (90.1cm) on Monday local time might be even more impressive.
It beat the daily record of 3.8in by nearly 10 times and roughly doubled the previous single-day record of 19in.
Indeed, outside the lake-effect snowbelts in New York, only a scant few locations in the US Northeast have seen so much snow in one day.
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