Euro Vs. GFS: The Snow Showdown

Cold season forecast details for the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. This edition, "Euro Vs. GFS: The Snow Showdown", was published Tuesday, February 24, 2026. Steve Pellettiere breaks down the pattern, the timing and the practical impacts. Covers the three to five day forecast for the region and the Airport Hub Outlook for the country's busiest airports. Steve is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist and Certified Broadcast Meteorologist with 50 years of forecasting experience. Topics: New Jersey snow forecast, NYC winter weather, Northeast snow, blizzard forecast, winter storm update, Mid-Atlantic forecast. The Weatherman Podcast with Steve Pellettiere, Certified Consulting and Broadcast Meteorologist. I talk about weather!

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Storm Recap And Date Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is Meteorologist Steve Pelleteria, and I am the Weatherman. Thanks for checking into the Weathermanpot.com on your Tuesday. It's the 24th day of the month of February 2026.

Euro Model Lore And Old Tools

SPEAKER_00 0:11

I chuckle because of just a tremendous storm that actually moved on through. One good thing, you know, the models that we talk about, there was the European model, of course, the U.S. model. The old story goes back to the Euro. It was always a top-notch type of thing that we wondered about in the 1990s, uh, before the age of really intense internet. Uh, we used to get most of our weather charts using fax machines, but not the fax machines that you see right now. These were actually special weather faxes. And the paper was actually wet, and electricity would actually burn the map into the paper. It was a special type of paper from Alden Company up in Boston. Well, long story short, that's when we first saw that. And there was this one tremendous storm. I mean, it's probably somewhere about 1996 or 1994, 1996. Those were two very big years in snowfall in the Northeast. And we saw the Euro and about five days ahead of time it had forecasts of this tremendous storm along the eastern sea where it gave tremendous amount of snow. And we thought it was the most amazing thing in the world because remember back then all the U.S. models were fairly garbage. They just did not work too well. They were working on them, but uh this was uh a real innovation.

Superstorm Sandy And Model Cred

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Well, but going into the uh OOs of 2000s and then up to the teens, and of course, uh we have Superstorm Sandy, and the Euro was the one model that actually forecasted this storm to come up along the eastern seaboard and then make a left turn and hit Atlantic City or Brigantine. That's kind of unheard of, also. So another amazing thing from the European model. Well, I'm sure the uh the National Climatic Data Center and uh National Centers for Environmental Protection uh down in D.C. and out in Colorado were working on these models to make them the best in the world. And I think they are getting real close to it.

GFS Leads The Forecast

SPEAKER_00 2:03

This storm was actually forecasted by the GFS about five to six days ago. And at the time, it was giving close to two inches of moisture, liquid equivalent, uh, to New York City and many places in New Jersey, Connecticut, and uh into the mid-Atlantic states. Hard to believe. The Euro is always actually the Euro did not forecast this storm uh up until like maybe Friday, and they started bringing it in, but bringing it in grudgingly. And we're always kind of using both numbers, but the the GFS was kind of staying the same the whole time.

Snow Totals Across The Northeast

SPEAKER_00 2:35

And well, it was just amazing to watch it, because I'm saying, my goodness, if we get this amount of moisture here, we're gonna have probably between 20 and 30 inches of snow. Well, lo and behold, we're looking at the numbers coming in. Connecticut, mostly 15, uh between six and fifteen, highest amounts were to the south. Massachusetts also between five and maybe twelve. And up in uh New York, Albany had the lighter amounts because you go further north, it wasn't that much. But you get down into Dutchess County up to 18 inches in some places there. And uh then you look into uh other counties in the south, uh Rockland County, Orange County, Westchester County and New York, Fairfield County and Connecticut, all places uh ranging somewhere between 15 and 22 inches of snow. But that's not

Newark’s Surprise Snowburst

SPEAKER_00 3:23

the end of it. So this uh area of uh well, I guess a band that was to the extreme western portion of the storm moved on through sometime between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. this morning, and it covered in eastern portions of New Jersey, eastern uh Bergen County, all of Hudson, eastern Essex, Eastern Union, eastern sections of Middlesex and Monmouth County, and even portions of Ocean County in New Jersey. And some of those places, uh tremendous amounts of snowfall between 22 and about 28, 29 inches of snow. I think Newark Liberty, the airport there, I think came in with about 28 inches of snow uh from this one storm. And uh it actually had started the morning with about 18 inches on the ground. We thought maybe maybe another two, three inches there. But uh when this snowburst came down, it really uh put the uh, I suppose, icing on a cake. I don't think so, but uh basically it was a lot of snowfall. And we're gonna be digging out digging up from this over the next several days.

Short-Term Forecast And Outlook

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Now we're gonna have a pretty dry day today in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. However, a little upper level disturbance is swinging on through, might give us a little coating to an inch of snow tomorrow morning. Then a little gradually milder. The sun is rising earlier, setting later each and every day. So eventually we start with meteorological springtime, which begins this upcoming Sunday. So as you look about about all the snow around you, just keep in mind the sun's gonna do some pretty quick work on it over the next five to seven days. Well, that's it for uh today. It's gonna be a good day today, might have some light snow tomorrow morning. Uh aviation, wash it's it's just a mess, so really not gonna talk about it. You can't get out of the New York area. Or if you do, it's gonna be delays because they're just going by the book, just plowing away and uh

Travel Impacts And Closing

SPEAKER_00 5:02

blowing snow, causing more and more problems. Uh suffice to say, your Tuesday is gonna be uh sunny, but it will be cold near 30 to 35, and then a little round of snow early tomorrow, and then uh back to a little bit of milder weather as we head towards the end of this week. I'm in your model, Steve Fellow Tier and I am the weather man. Hope you have a great day today. I'll talk to you first thing tomorrow with some more numbers too around the area. See you then.