Wednesday February 18 2026 Forecast (8:35AM)

110 Comments

DAYS 1-5 (FEBRUARY 18-22)

An active pattern will throw a low of unsettled weather at our region over the next several days, on a wavering border between cold air in Canada and mild Pacific air residing in a large part of the eastern US. Today’s event is a fairly narrow band of precipitation coming along the boundary with the help of a weak wave of low pressure. It’s mild enough that we should see it start as rain then shift toward sleet to snow, but it will be in a fairly narrow band that may leave parts of the Merrimack Valley, northeastern MA, and southern NH out of most of it, with the steadier precipitation focused to the southwest of Boston. As for snowfall accumulation, I’m not looking for much, maybe up to an inch or two where it snows longest / steadiest, which I think will stretch from Boston’s southwestern suburbs west northwestward across central MA. The conveyor belt of moisture goes dry by late evening when drier air moves in, and this will last through Thursday which will be a fairly decent day. And then we wait for the next batch of moisture to come out way with another low pressure area, this one slightly more organized than its predecessor. Its precipitation area will be a little more widespread and cross the region during Friday afternoon and night with a variety of precipitation, favoring rain / mix to the south and mix / snow to the north. This time I favor up to a few inches of snow accumulation favoring north central MA into southern NH, but will refine those details over the next 48 hours. Behind this one can come some lingering snow showers into Saturday morning which may be formidable enough for some minor additional accumulation in some areas. The next one to watch has been shown to have a lot more potential to be a significant winter storm on a lot of guidance – a solution that I have doubted quite a bit, but don’t reject 100%. Watching that. However, how I think it plays out is based on the behavior of a regional blocking to our west and northwest by then – high pressure over southern Hudson Bay of Canada and elongated upper low pressure over the Great Lakes. I believe this forces the disturbance fueling the next system to move a little more quickly to the east and a little further south, igniting low pressure along the southern Mid Atlantic Coast early Sunday which then moves east northeastward, passing south of New England Sunday night. My early idea on this system is that while it does start to intensify fairly quickly, it does so a little more slowly than many model depictions indicate and with a track far enough south that southern portions of our region are side-swiped by the main precipitation area (probably snow as it should be cold enough) and the remainder of the region sees lighter snowfall from a pressure weakness between that storm and the aforementioned upper low which will be sliding eastward across northern New England by that time. I’ll continue to monitor this threat.

TODAY: Cloudy. Areas of fog into mid morning. Precipitation arrives west to east midday-afternoon as mainly rain then trending to sleet and snow later in northern areas, with greatest chance of steadier precipitation central and east central MA southward, less chance in NH. Highs 33-40. Wind N to NE up to 10 MPH.

TONIGHT: Cloudy. Mix/snow probable evening with snow accumulation of a coating to 1 inch, except up to 2 inches possible higher elevations mainly central and south central MA. Precipitation ends and clouds break overnight. Watch for icy spots on untreated surfaces. Lows 28-35. Wind N to NE up to 10 MPH.

THURSDAY: Sun/cloud mix. Highs 35-42. Wind variable up to 10 MPH.

THURSDAY NIGHT: Clouding up. Lows 28-35. Wind variable up to 10 MPH.

FRIDAY: Cloudy. Snow/mix/rain arrives midday-afternoon. Highs 35-42. Wind variable to NE up to 10 MPH.

FRIDAY NIGHT: Cloudy with mix/snow, tapering off overnight. Early call on snow accumulating for this event less 1 to 3 inches except under 1 inch toward the South Coast. Lows 28-35. Wind NE to N 5-15 MPH.

SATURDAY: Mostly cloudy with scattered snow showers until midday, then partial sunshine. Highs 33-40. Wind N 5-15 MPH.

SATURDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy. Lows 23-30. Wind N under 10 MPH.

SUNDAY: Cloudy. Chance of snow. Highs 30-37. Wind NE 5-15 MPH except 15-25 MPH Cape Cod.

DAYS 6-10 (FEBRUARY 23-27)

There maybe lingering early snow February 23 in southeastern areas, otherwise dry weather into the middle of next week before the next unsettled weather threat appears in the February 26-27 timeframe. Temperatures near to below normal.

DAYS 11-15 (FEBRUARY 28 – MARCH 4)

Another threat of wintry weather exists around the start of March with fair weather before and again after. Temperatures mostly below normal.

110 thoughts on “Wednesday February 18 2026 Forecast (8:35AM)”

  5. Headed home from Burlington. Took the opportunity to walk out on frozen over lake Champlain. So cool. Went out maybe just shy of 1,000 yards. Great experience. I guess the first time it’s been frozen over since 2019

    Reply

  6. Latest HRRR makes me wonder if my already conservative forecast for today isn’t conservative enough. 😉

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  7. Thanks, TK.

    It’s been an interesting winter in terms of sustained cold, obviously, but also snow events. It’s not as if a lot has fallen. We’re not yet at our seasonal average. Yes, we had one large storm. But other than that, it’s been A LOT of mostly teeny-weeny events all winter. This `trend’ continues this week.

    Reply

  9. Wordle: 3

    Looking ahead for weather – I’m hoping for a lull in potential activity by next week. On March 1st I’ll be running a 10k in Hyannis. They have an annual Marathon and 10k that day. Should be interesting!

    Reply

  11. Reading about an avalanche in Lake Tahoe, 6 hikers rescued, 9 still missing.

    They went out in quite a blizzard. The cam I look at in Lake Tahoe looks like they received 3-4 ft of snow the last 48 hrs.

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  14. 12Z ICON still has a strong system and it has come back North
    than last night’s 0Z run

    https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?rh=2026021812&fh=138&dpdt=&mc=&r=conus&p=prateptype_cat_icon-imp&m=icon

    Clips Cape and Islands

    https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=icon&p=snku_024h-imp&rh=2026021812&fh=144&r=us_ne&dpdt=&mc=

    0Z

    https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=icon&p=snku_024h-imp&rh=2026021800&fh=144&r=us_ne&dpdt=&mc=

    Don’t know IF it means anything, just reporting it.

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  22. So, people will analyze the heck out of the Sunday / Monday thing with not a whole lot of new info to go by, but myself, I am going to be rewinding my focus back to TODAY and TONIGHT. It’s not a big event, but the black ice threat later tonight / early tomorrow morning is more of a concern than today’s precipitation event. This should not be forgotten. This event is more important than having all the puzzle pieces in place for 2 events away. Still have another one between this one and that one.

    Weather forecasting doesn’t take any “events off”. 😉

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      1. I’m not really so sure about “best” unless the 3rd one is a complete miss. But for some areas (like central and northern MA into southern NH) it could very well be the best shot of the 3.

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  23. Thanks TK.

    The Sierra storm and its high impacts were well forecasted. Amazing to see so many people exercise terrible judgment and go out traveling in it….

    WxChasing- Brandon Clement
    @bclemms
    14h

    I managed to safely travel from Truckee, to Donner Pass to Lake Tahoe to Reno covering this winter storm in California. I think it’s important to show people the impacts and not just enjoy the comforts of a hotel.

    https://x.com/bclemms/status/2023955896049533178?s=20

    Reply

      1. It doesn’t mean that, in a related way, but I do think it will be a bit less amped than the 06z, which has been in windshield wiper mode a lot lately. I swear they changed something about the data ingestion for 06z and 18z on that model recently. Only way to explain the recent behavior.

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        1. Mark and I were mentioning this the other day.
          We certainly noticed what has been going on with the 6Z and 18Z runs. Interesting. I am looking at each panel as it comes out and comparing with 0Z run.

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  27. I get the sense that the 500mb is just a wee bit more amplified on the 12Z Euro run than the 0Z, but it is EARLY yet. 🙂

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    1. Ah sorry, that was me. I hit the pause button then got up to put away some groceries and get lunch ready. 😉

      Reply

  30. Quick comment on the Sunday / Monday threat.
    Today after seeing 12z stuff (so far) I have the same thought as yesterday regarding the synoptic set-up and the various models’ handling of it. It’s summarized in my discussion today anyway.

    No changes.

    Back to focusing on today!

    Reply

  31. While it’s thankfully been a gradual melt, the last 24 to 48 hours have really put a dent into the snowpack. There isn’t much of a snowpack at all left on the banks of the Charles on the Cambridge side where I run. The Boston side is different but shrinking fairly rapidly.

    it would be nice to get even a wee snowfall in the coming days to cover up the snow that’s covered in black, brown, and yellow.

    I am putting away my space heater today. I only used it 3 times this winter (zero times, last winter). And no, this doesn’t mean winter’s over. But it does mean that whatever cold is coming isn’t going to match what we had. And so, no need for the space heater.

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      1. Not getting any hopes up for anything these days. The models just spit out lies and set us up for disappointment.

        ps…totally kidding.

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          1. Yeah, that’s “the models”. I actually forecast the weather. This is the same reasoning I used when I told everybody that our pattern looked good AFTER January 20 for a while, followed by a 2 week respite in mid February.

            It was doing that “after January 20” favorable-for-snowstorms period that Boston experienced one of the top 10 snowfalls on record for a single storm.

            #MeteorologyNotModelology

            My favorite hash-tag this winter. 🙂

            Reply

              1. I do! 🙂

                And I’m talking about more than the models of course, and my hashtag is aimed at those numerous online posts from people who have thousands of followers but have no qualifications to inform people about the weather. 😉

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      1. I always love Bernie’s posts. I find I only agree with him about 25% of the time but he explains everything very clearly.

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  34. Thanks TK.

    What a difference a week makes here in CA! Going to have some spectacular views by this weekend as our final storm pushes through and clear skies return. A much needed epic snowfall boost for our mountains, although a major tragedy outside of Tahoe with 8 confirmed dead in an avalanche up there.

    SNE weather thoughts…

    * Late weekend storm is definitely too close of a call and too far out in time to write off. Would take only a very minor shift in the upper air pattern, well within the realm of usual error at days 4-5, to bring a major blizzard to SNE. But I do lean more south/OTS. Boundaries like the one coming through Friday-Saturday tend to be sluggish, and you really need to get that system out of the way and build in some weak ridging behind it to give the later storm a chance. Not the most likely outcome.

    * While it’s possible/likely the coldest air of the season has passed in SNE, I concur with TK that winter is far from over. I’m looking more towards the very end of Feb and beyond then. No guarantees of course but in all likelihood y’all are far from done with the shovels and plows this season… Boston will come in solidly above normal for seasonal snow.

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    2. Ty. As usual, generally agree.

      While I do agree that a not-too-big shift in the upper pattern could result in a SNE clobbering, I just think the odds of that are much lower than it not happening, or resulting in a shift even further southeast.

      As always … Time ………… will …….. tellllllllllllllllll………

      Reply

  38. Is there any snow being reported anywhere in the state?
    I didn’t see any. Rain at Pittsfield, Westfield and Worcester.

    Blah blah blah blah

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  39. Better chance now we miss Sunday/Monday would be an awesome outcome. But hundred miles shift northwest we get a bit more. Hopefully not.

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  40. Kevin Lemanowicz is out at Channel 25 (Fox). I’m disappointed. I like Kevin. He may be my current favorite met on TV. He’s had a 30-year run. That’s impressive. I wish him well.

    Reply

      1. It’s been a mess for a while. People leaving; accusations of racism; accusations of sexism; back-biting galore; etc.

        Reply

        1. I’ll never go back to the “weather biz” professionally at this point, unless it’s a side thing that grows out of this blog – don’t count that out.

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  41. Thanks, TK!

    0.14″ in the rain bucket, enough to clean the streets, driveways and walkways from the salt and grime.

    37 degrees.

    Sunset: 5:22

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  42. 18z gfs has upped the ante on snow for Sunday into Monday system and still not a direct hit kind of a strong glancing blow.

    What will the Euro say? Break out the hoses and put out the fire?

    Reply

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