This is mostly a technology blog. But Connecticut weather has earned a recurring spot here over the past couple of months. We covered Winter Storm Fern in January, figured out why it had two names, reflected on what went right after that storm, and tracked the cold snap that kept Fern’s snow on the ground for weeks.
I can’t skip the biggest storm to hit Connecticut since 2013. Even if I have to admit up front that I missed it entirely.
Why I Wasn’t Here
On Saturday morning, February 21, the National Weather Service upgraded its Winter Storm Watch for southern Connecticut to a Blizzard Warning. Milford was looking at 13 to 21 inches of snow, wind gusts near 60 mph, and full blizzard conditions starting Sunday.
I was loading the truck for a 750-mile drive to central Indiana. An impromptu family gathering. The rare kind that no one plans for and no one looks forward to.
I left Milford around 1:30 in the afternoon. It was 44 degrees and partly sunny. I took I-84 west to I-80 across Pennsylvania, stopped for the night in DuBois, and had dinner at the pub next door. The roads were dry and uneventful.
Sunday morning I woke up to an inch and a half of snow in DuBois. Brushed off the truck, got back on I-80, and drove west into flurries that followed me across Pennsylvania and into Ohio. The highway was nearly empty. Temperatures stayed below freezing the entire way.
I arrived in Indiana around 3 PM. Back in Connecticut, the blizzard was just getting started.
What Milford Got
WFSB named this one Blizzard Calvin, continuing the local storm-naming tradition that dates back to 1971. The Weather Channel went with Winter Storm Hernando. National media mostly called it the Blizzard of 2026.
Whatever you call it, here’s what happened while I was away.
Milford received 17.5 inches of snow. That’s almost half again what Fern dropped in January. Bridgeport and Stratford recorded 20 inches. North Stonington, in the far eastern corner of the state, measured 30.8. Providence, Rhode Island shattered its all-time single-storm snowfall record with 37.9 inches, beating the Blizzard of 1978 by nearly 10 inches.
The storm was a bomb cyclone. Its central pressure dropped 40 millibars in 24 hours, nearly double the threshold for bombogenesis. Wind gusts reached 68 mph at Groton-New London Airport. Official blizzard conditions — sustained winds above 35 mph with visibility under a quarter mile for three or more hours — were confirmed at Groton, Meriden, and Waterbury.
Governor Lamont declared a state of emergency Sunday afternoon and imposed a commercial vehicle travel ban on all limited-access highways through Monday afternoon. Bradley Airport canceled 95 percent of Monday’s flights. Schools across the state closed Monday and Tuesday, with additional closures Wednesday when a follow-up clipper dropped more snow on roads that were still being cleared.
Eversource reported over 14,000 outages at the peak Monday morning. United Illuminating had another 1,100. Both utilities had pre-positioned crews from neighboring states and Canada, and most power was restored by Tuesday. That was far better than Eversource’s initial warning of “several hundred thousand” possible outages.
CTDOT deployed 650 trucks with more than 900 drivers, backed by roughly 200 private contractors. The snow was wetter and heavier than January’s, and it took days to clear.
Coming Home
I drove home Wednesday. The five-day forecast had called for rain along the entire route. Not a drop materialized. Sunny more often than not. Thirteen and a half hours, never had to slow below the speed limit for more than a few seconds. One of the best long drives I’ve had.
I pulled into Milford expecting the aftermath. Narrowed roads, dirty snow banks, the usual visual evidence of a major storm. Instead, the roads were clear. The parking lots were clear. The evidence was at the edges. Massive piles of snow ringed the perimeters of parking lots where the plows had pushed everything. The line of snow at the back of my building was seven feet deep. But the driving surfaces themselves looked like nothing had happened.
Snow Stories
There’s a strange feeling in missing something everyone around you experienced. My colleagues dug out their driveways. My neighbors watched the snow pile up from their windows. The plow drivers worked through the night. I drove away on a sunny Saturday afternoon and came home to clean pavement.
Last time, I wrote about gratitude for the timing, the supply chain, the utility crews, and the plow drivers who made a foot of snow feel routine. This time, I owe the same gratitude to people I wasn’t even here to watch work. And once Connecticut’s own roads were clear, CTDOT sent crews to help dig out Rhode Island and Massachusetts. That’s worth noting.
I was where I needed to be that weekend. I don’t regret missing the storm. But if the Blizzard of ‘78 still comes up in conversation — and in Connecticut, it does — then the Blizzard of ‘26 will too.
I just won’t have my own snow story to tell.
Sources
- NBC Connecticut - Town-by-Town Snow Totals After Blizzard of 2026
- Hartford Courant - Nor’easter Blasts CT with Blizzard Conditions
- AccuWeather - Blizzard of 2026 Wallops Northeast
- WFSB - Connecticut DOT Sends Crews to Plow Out Rhode Island and Massachusetts
- CT Public - Blockbuster Blizzard: CT Works to Dig Out
- Fox Weather - Historic Blizzard 2026 Smashes Records
- WFSB - Lamont Calls Blizzard Calvin Worst Storm Since 2013