EVENT ARCHIVE

The Blizzard of the Long Night

Thirty-one hours of continuous snow, a 962mb low, and a wind field that turned four inches of new snow into four-foot drifts.

JANUARY 14–16, 2026 · UPPER MIDWEST AND GREAT LAKES · FINAL VERDICT: HIT

Updates

Newest updates on top. Timestamps on everything. If the situation changes, this page changes with it — that's the whole point.

2026-01-16 18:00
Final totals in. 27.4 inches at the airport, 31 inches nine miles north. The gradient held exactly where the deformation band was forecast to sit.
2026-01-15 09:30
Thundersnow reported. Two-inch-an-hour rates on the north side of the low. This is the part where the forecast either ages well or does not.
2026-01-14 21:00
Low is deepening faster than guidance. Pressure falls of 11mb in six hours. Bombogenesis is not a marketing word tonight.
2026-01-14 12:00
Coverage opens. Everything below is in reverse chronological order and timestamped, because that is the whole point.

The autopsy

What was forecast, what actually happened, and what the gap teaches us. Every event gets one, especially the humbling ones.

Forecast 24 to 30 inches with a sharp northern gradient. Verified 27.4 with the gradient 6 miles north of the called line. Timing was two hours early on onset and three hours late on the end, which is a wash. The miss inside the hit: I underplayed the wind. Drifting closed roads the snow total alone would not have closed, and I should have led with the wind field rather than burying it in paragraph four.

HIT