If you live in the Northeast, there’s probably a blanket of snow covering everything outside your home right now. As I write this, I’m currently sitting at a desk looking out a window onto a New York City street, where there seems to be about a foot of snow on top of every car, sidewalk, and trash pile.
New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts are being hit with a metric ton of snow right now, thanks to a blizzard described by CNN as a “bomb cyclone,” delivering hurricane-force winds that are knocking out power in some regions. Over two feet of snow has fallen already, and it’s not supposed to stop in my area until around 1 p.m. There’s so much snow that NYC issued a travel ban from 9 p.m. Sunday to noon on Monday (thankfully, I managed to find a parking spot for my A8 last night with 14 minutes to spare).
That is all to say, it’s pretty sketchy out there right now. If you’re in the area and don’t absolutely need to travel, you shouldn’t. Some people aren’t taking the city’s warning very seriously, though. And their mistakes are ending up in viral videos across social media.
There’s A Reason Cars Shouldn’t Be On The Road
Coming home from my weekend of ice racing, as the blizzard laid down its first few inches of snow, made for a dramatic entry into New York City. There weren’t a lot of cars on the road, but the people who were driving on the highway exhibited a vast mixture of driving skill, from perfectly normal to downright frozen with fear, hazard lights on, going 20 below the speed limit (by this point, there wasn’t really any snow sticking to the ground). Eventually, I made it back to Manhattan and even managed to find a parking spot to fit my limousine of a car:
As the snow fell last night, my social media feed began to show me photos and videos of fallen trees, downed electricity lines, and businesses without any power. The weight of the snow, combined with the high winds, was enough to rip this tree out of the ground in Manhattan and crush the nose of an unsuspecting Honda Pilot, while also blocking the road:
NOW: Widespread damage from Blizzard Snowstorm in NYC. Trees shown down in Chelsea and Soho neighborhoods in Manhattan
Video by Dakota Santiago @FreedomNTV Desk@freedomnews.tv to license pic.twitter.com/tfJcxz3NLE
— Oliya Scootercaster ???? (@ScooterCasterNY) February 23, 2026
It’s not just parked cars that the trees were targeting last night. A video from the whatisnewyork Instagram page shows a garbage truck with a plow that was seemingly struck by a large tree branch as it was attempting to plow a surface street:
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As a reminder to those who think they’re the best drivers in the world: Even if you won’t get stuck in the snow, you aren’t immune to needing gasoline (or an EV charger) to make it to your destination. Those looking to grab enough fuel to get home in Brick, New Jersey, simply couldn’t because power to the station was knocked out:
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In New York City, there’s actually a website that tells you the last time a street has been plowed, to the nearest hour. It’s pretty fun to see how efficient (or inefficient) the plow trucks are operating, and how your local neighborhood is faring concerning the status of your streets.
In my neighborhood, for example, it looks like a couple of streets have been plowed within the past hour, while others were plowed in the last 1-3 hours. And there’s at least one that the plow folks haven’t touched in 6-12 hours:
Of course, seeing that your route has been recently plowed is no excuse to violate the travel ban.
C’mon, You Guys
People who have ignored the travel ban have, unsurprisingly, found themselves in pretty dangerous situations. This video of what looks to be an on-ramp in New York shows a bunch of two-wheel drive vehicles, including a Nissan 350Z and a Camaro, stuck in the snow and unable to continue, as a flatbed prepares to pull cars out:
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There are many similar cases. This clip from FOX Weather on TikTok shows police lecturing a Camry driver after they slid off the road and into an embankment, leaving the car stuck in snow:
@foxweatherDANGEROUS ROAD CONDITIONS ⚠️: A car slid off a road in Mamaroneck, New York, amid heavy snow and slick road conditions. Officials are warning residents to stay off the roads until the storm passes.♬ original sound – FOX Weather
Here’s another video, also from TikTok, that shows a crowd of people assisting a sedan as it fought to climb up a small incline covered in what looks to be several inches of snow. Even with three people pushing (and one falling), the car could barely get above a couple of miles per hour:
@foreverashley It’s not a game out here!! Blizzard 2026 #nyc #blizzard #stayhome ♬ original sound – Forever Ashley
It’s not just cars that are coming up on my feed. Before the travel ban went into effect and NYC’s buses were taken out of service, a TikToker caught a video of one stuck in a big pile of snow as it was trying to round a corner. These buses are usually equipped with snow chains on days where snow is predicted, but this bus didn’t seem to have them wrapped around the rear tires.
The video shows at least half a dozen people gathering at the back of the bus to push it free, before giving up and going about their days:
@madddogtv NYC Blizzard ⚠️ has Begin 12 to 18 inches ❄️☃️ winds 45 mph . #snowstrom #nyc #fyp #blizzard #snowfall ♬ snowfall – Øneheart & reidenshi
By far the wildest video I’ve seen from this bomb cyclone so far is this video from Instagram published at around 11 p.m. last night of a person riding an e-bike at roughly 10 mph on a snow-covered New York highway, blocking traffic and causing an extremely dangerous situation:
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This isn’t the first time I’ve seen someone riding a low-speed moped or e-bike on a NYC highway—I see it happen first-hand pretty often, actually—but I’m not sure what would compel this individual to do so with a foot of snow on the ground. I sure hope they made it home alright.
Please, take this series of videos as a lesson to avoid unnecessary travel during hazardous weather conditions. You could end up getting injured, or your car could end up damaged. Or, even worse, you could wind up going viral. And no one wants that.
Top graphic image: 63autobody/Instagram
One thing this world doesn’t have a shortage of is dumbasses.
I don’t wanna hear any more comments on southern drivers in the snow, y’all have lost that privilege lol
I was expecting to see footage of a certain Audi 8L LARPing around Times Square.
thought about it, but figured I’d better find a parking spot before they were all snatched up (plus I’m not a rule-breaker)
Enough with the embedded Instagram posts/videos! Please stop.
I don’t see the problem
I don’t have Instagram installed, so I don’t see the content of the posts. That’s the problem. Or my problem. It’s not the end of the world.
Because it’s just a blank block, nothing shows up.
Those are episodic occurrences in a city whose “snow behavior” has otherwise drastically changed in the last 10-ish years. In a city with millions of inhabitants it is clear that a few will do the wrong thing.
However, the main source of total movable bollards in NYC – the taxis – have evolved sufficiently to no longer bring the city to a complete stop at the slightest snowflake.
I still remember the times when the slightest slippery event will result in two rows of yellow cabs locked in each lane at the slightest denivelation, desperately slipping their glass-smooth tires, and wondering what’s going on.
Two classes of vehicles – Crown Vics and Econoline vans were the main source of blockage. Because there’s plenty of them, and because each time they’d explode a wheel on a pothole, they’d drive to the closest garage, and swap another wheel – with some type of tire on it in some type of condition – for $30. Till the next pothole. So they had tires that were beyond description.
Those would morph into a metallic barrier blocking every strategic chokepoint with literally two inches of snow on the ground. Little did it matter if you had a Humvee three rows behind them. You were stuck.
Nowadays the Econolines are still there (more Ram vans though), but the cabs are all some sort of Hybrid (mandatory), or an EV, which very often will come in AWD, not because they wanted it, but because that’s what was available.
This has made a tremendous difference.
As for the AWD vs non-AWD – the difference pays off for me on a day like that. It’s a no-brainer. All other things being equal – get stuck two winters in a row, and between the hassle and the tows, you end up paying the same, stress and risk on top.
Never drive in a snow ban. It’s a day off with pay. Although mamdunfuk says don’t drive it interferes with restaurants delivery drivers and delivery drivers is stupid because they don’t drive in the shut down. Dude is stupid as a dead moose.
The sad reality is that many corporations like the multi-billion dollar one I work for don’t pay you to stay home. They say to use your vacation time if you don’t go to work. I respect the snow bans, and don’t really want to drive a heavy 24’ box truck (mobile medical repair lab) on wheels in the snow. Where I was in northern New England they only had slowed highway speeds yesterday. I lumbered home from work slowly and safely, using appropriate stopping distances and turning speeds.
But, but, I have AWD and my tires say All Season!
I kept expecting the videos to show worse conditions than they did, but it doesn’t look that bad? Go to the other end of NY and get seven feet in 24 hours.
I can’t see any videos
Damn, they really can’t drive in the snow.
A lot of bad\improper tires, I’m sure.
Stay safe out there! Based on my short experience living in Jersey City and working in NYC I thought folks in the NE experienced enough snow to have more common sense? Here in Seattle, we get a snowfall like this maybe every 4-5 years and social media is full of videos of people sledding their 4000lb crossovers. Is this just a 1st winter rite of passage for people who migrated north from warm southern areas?
I tried to help a guy get unstuck when we had an ice storm here a couple years ago who’d slid part way down a side street and into a planter. It was so slick you couldn’t safely walk without yaktrax or microspikes on. The driver said he’d lived in LA his whole life and this was his first winter never having driven in snow or ice before.
I’ve been shoveling on and off since 10 pm last night. A kindly neighbor saw my pitiful efforts and possibly fearing a fatality on the street, cleared my driveway with his snow blower.
Dec ’94 – left college in Cleveland to go home to Pittsburgh for winter break. Blizzard conditions in an ’84 (Fox body) LTD. Made one stop in Ohio, had to chip ice off the (illuminated) headlamps. Just left the carburated car running. Crossed the PA border on the Turnpike, couldn’t even see the road. Locked onto the taillamps of a tractor-trailor and sent it. Finally pulled in at home. Mom, who never swore, saw me and said “WTF are you doing here????” Immediatley called dad at his office. Dad is just like – yep, my son.
Mom is yelling at dad “our stupid a** son just drove home in this sh**.” Little brother (12) walks in the door (walked home from middle school).”Hey, what’s up”
That’s the first blizzard I remember! I lived about 40 min SE of Cleveland. We had just cut down a 4-5ft in diameter tree and those slices of tree-trunk were standing on their side in our backyard. The snow covered them up! I remember the snow being up to my chin in some places!
You were near Twinsboro?
Kent/Ravenna area. I miss it sometimes, it’s too flat in Central Ohio
Pittsburgh native, but went to Case Western for my degree. I would have stayed in Cleveland had more jobs been available. Moved back to Pittsburgh region with employment after graduating.
The drive from Colombus to Cincy is pure hell.
That’s why they put those signs up!
“HELL IS REAL” Yeah man, I’m driving through it!
If you want to guarantee your road gets plowed ASAP you should live on a bus line. Never had issues getting to work in Seattle because I lived on a bus route and those were always the first to get plowed.
I think your lack of issues is owed to the fact that Seattle gets a whopping 6 inches of snow a year, not the fact you live on a bus line.
How does Seattle’s average snowfall equate to which roads get plowed first?
If snow is on road that a bus uses it gets plowed first. End of story.
That’s not what I said. I said 6″ per year average snow fall is why you don’t have issues.
Some years we get almost zero. The rest of the average has to get accounted for in other years.
Heavy snow is kind of a freak occurrence in Seattle, but on those rare occasions when it does occur, the city can be paralyzed for days.
Not having consistently snowy winters means it’s harder to justify a big fleet of snowplows.
Even cities with large snow fall amounts can’t keep up when it’s a big dump. If it’s falling at 6″ per hour for 6 hours, no amount of trucks can keep up.
TBH I don’t think we even get that most winters.
Not sure where you got your number but I assure you as a resident of the greater Seattle are for over 4 decades we do not get an average of 6 inches of snow per year. Many years we get nothing that actually sticks to the road. 1″+ is usually considered snowmagedon. Since we infrequently get snow we have very few plows. For the Seattle area they are not dedicated plows they are blades sitting out back and hopefully they still have the truck it fits. When they do make it on the road they stick to the arterials which so happen to also be the bus routes. Additionally Metro does have a few blades for their push trucks and of course they stick to their routes.
For many roads the SOP is to wait it out and let it melt. So yeah living on the bus route does mean the road will be one of the first/few roads to get plowed.
Google searches and wikipedia say 6″ on average.
I never said the bus route doesn’t get plowed first; go read what I said. I said the reason someone doesn’t have a commute impacted by snow in Seattle is because Seattle gets a miniscule amount of snow.
I live on the street where my our city’s DPW is located. Do I have to hear snowplows scraping away at all hours from my house? Yes. Is my street always clear? Also yes.
I was in a similar situation at my last home. It wasn’t the garage for the plows, but it was one of two locations (the other being the garage) where they could fuel up. It was glorious clean every time it snowed.
I have a park across the street so the parks department takes care of my road. They’ve got their own equipment and are all over it, up and down the street all day and night during snow storms. I never quite know how bad the roads are until I leave my neighborhood!
I think we are in the perfect spot – not a main road that would certainly get cleaned first, but since we have a couple of 1-way streets on each side of us the plows are forced around a loop and make a couple of passes every time they come by.
I live on a bus line and also near where the snow plows gather before fanning out to different parts of the city.
The road gets plowed and salted at least 3x an hour. That’s part of the reason I tend not to buy out leased cars.
School bus routes don’t count. And the school is at the end of my street!
This reminds me of the near annual TV news items in the PNW with people who think they know how to drive in snow. Local weather leads to lots of black ice which results in bus drifting in Seattle, car pinball in NW PDX and 4x4s stuck on West Burnside.
To me the biggest risk driving in big storms is other drivers losing control.
People in NY should have some clue since when I lived in Westchester we got several decent snowfalls every winter.
As random note a few years ago I saw a picture of a bicycle in Seattle with zip ties on the wheels to make improvised tire chains (this won’t work with rim brakes).
Also why is the NE getting all the snow, we’re desperate for snow in the NW
We actually had a streak going where the one major snowfall for the entire winter would come at or around Valentine’s Day, and the rest of the winter we were stuck looking at brown things all over the place.
This year has been a major break to that pattern, though, with multiple appreciable snowfalls. As a former Midwesterner I don’t think anything less than 5″ is worth getting bothered about, but we’ve had multiple storms this season that dumped 6″+.
Bingo. Other than “slow down” the best advice I can give is to stay as far away from other vehicles as possible. Which is why one of the few times I’ve had true road rage was when a semi tailgated me on an icy interstate where there was no way he could stop if something happened in front of us.
Other reasons to stay off the roads is to not require emergency personnel to do more work than necessary to save you from yourself or to not potentially get in the way of the plows doing their job, but a big one to remember for the overconfident is that your skills and the car’s capability don’t matter when you’re surrounded by idiots on worn bargain AS tires that could crash into you or block roads either through crash or inability to achieve forward motion on a slight incline or something and cause backups you can’t escape, leaving you stuck for up to hours behind these a-holes. Even with snow tires on a car that was good in the snow, it once took me 5.5 hours to travel 50 miles and 3.5 to travel 20 (about a third of that was just the first 3 miles), both times even with leaving work early.
I was expecting a lot of 4WD and AWD vehicles spinning around, out of control.
Kinda disappointed.
I think it’s just happenstance as it’s not uncommon at all to see the overconfident AWD idiots in show banks. This year, I’ve been seeing a lot of people on the freeways jammed into banks. I think they’re driving distracted, drifting too close to the sides, and getting pulled in. It’s even happened with some tractor trailers.
They may not have been replaced after the snowstorm that happened last month.
LoL
I’m sure many of these people are idiots, but I can’t help wonder if some number of them fall in the category of “my boss said I have to come in or I’m fired and I can’t afford to lose this job”
Having formally been a poor college student that couldn’t afford good winter tires and HAD to get to class, I certainly feel for a lot of people not having an alternative. I’m of the “drive as slow as you need to in the furthest right lane” mindset. Give yourself time and be safe.
And sometimes people get stuck. That happens. Ideally not on a highway ramp, though….
Oh man, I remember in college driving my recently acquired ’88 TransAm around with “all season” tires that were probably rock hard since the PO had mostly had it parked. Remember one snowy morning slowly going past the dorms and that auto shifted hard enough when cold that even when barely breathing on the gas the shift into 2nd would break the rear end free for a sec. Don’t know if it was a blessing or a curse that the limited slip diff gave me just enough traction to hobble around instead of just being stuck in the parking lot.
My Kia Spectra had “H” rated tires, which is preeettyy optimistic for what speeds it was capable of. But at the time, to get a tire in that size (14″ alloys, yo!) with an H rating, you ended up with performance all-seasons. None of the tire shops would install anything with a lower rating, so I was stuck. When new, those tires were fine-ish, but as they wore they were not so much. And as they wore, I didn’t become any less poor, so those things had to last until they were practically slick or I needed to pass inspection.
Yeh I think in an ideal world both of us would’ve somehow come up with the money for snow tires but that’s not a cheap solution.
Yeh sadly I was thinking the same thing-some bosses are better about this than others. And the ones who aren’t are usually at the kind of crappy low pay jobs that people really can’t afford to lose.
I think the saddest thing was the guy trying to ride his scooter down the sidewalk.
Question from non-snow living conditions (except maybe and inch or 2 once every few years), do the snow plows just smack the snow up against the street parked cars? Does it cause car damage?
In the twin cities that sees 50+ inches a year the plow trucks just make a snow and ice ridge right up against the cars that need to be shoveled out or driven over. But with all the experience and equipment they are probably on the high end of skilled plow truck drivers.
Yes and not usually as they leave some space, but it can take a while to dig out of the compacted snow. Many places have parking bans that go in effect to allow the plows to clear as much of the full road width as possible, but it also results in cars not sitting stuck in snow banks, sometimes until it melts, which narrows the street more than the width of the vehicle and can make it more difficult for emergency vehicle access.
Here they do parking restrictions and tow those who ignore the signs and park anyway.
I wish they would have towed my neighbor who insisted on ignoring the alternate side parking rules. He’d always park next to my driveway, so the plows would leave half the road in front of me unplowed, and then if they came back to clean up when he’d moved the car it would leave another giant pile of heavily compacted snow at the end of my driveway.
Impure thoughts of murder cross my mind
I finally moved away. Fortunately, you’re not legally required to disclose toxic neighbors like you are toxic waste. 😉
The plow sometime leaves a congealing pile of sand, ice and salt at the end of my drive. If the temps drop fast it’s great fun chopping through it.
I am staring at a 4′ high compacted snow dam in front of my driveway, so yes on question #1.
Thankfully I take public transportation to work so I have a few days to hack through the dam.
I guess buying a Dart wasn’t the only bad decision that person made.
Me, giggling just to the north of this particular storm.
I live where 6-8 inches of snow is one slightly inconvenient rush hour and 12+ inches is 2 inconvenient rush hours. The worst winter drivers are the ones who do not change their driving to match the conditions. I see it every winter.
I think I get most frustrated by the people who slow down because it’s slick, but they don’t change anything else. No lights on, no turn signals, driving 15 under in the left lane. Also a growing number or people with their hazards on, but again, just in whatever lane.
I had slow peeps this morning heading in with a slight dusting on the road wasn’t to slick or anything though. One was a wrangler with Michigan plates (I work in northwest Indiana around south bend) but this jeep was driving like he had never seen snow and was driving like 15-20 under in a 50-55 (so only going like 40mph max at times but constantly slowing down to 35mph) also got stuck behind a Chevy cross over (blazer maybe?) doing the same thing but even worse they would tap on their brakes anytime there was an approaching car. I swear people see snow and just lose any common sense it takes to drive.
I would rather have someone know their skill and drive under than be going 20 over on an ice sheet of a highway.
Hah true you have either the over confident idiots going 15-20 over or the white knucklers that see a dusting and lose any sense of driving. I normally keep my distance and drive around or a bit under the speed limit and like the over confident a holes fly past me. Now if the road is empty and between some farm fields I might mess around a bit since I take my FJ on crap days haha.
Few years back commuting onto the office in the midst of a normal winter storm I was passed by a fairly new F150 piloted by a seriously overconfident driver. A couple of km down the road he was upside down in the middle of the divided highway. I regularly see these idiots performing their ice ballet. I slap on the winter tires and drive according to the conditions.unless the road is covered a foot deep i usually drive the speed limit of 110 km/hr. Never had a problem. Speeding on my 80 km commute gains an entire 5 minutes. It’s pointless.
A majority of what I’ve been seeing this winter in SW Michigan is max speed between 20-25, hazards on, no headlights, and ALWAYS in the left lane, no deviation from the left lane until they decide they need to actually make a right turn. I don’t drive fast in shitty conditions, but FFS get into the right lane or stay home!
In SE Michigan, poor lane discipline + a split speed limit for trucks = annoying in good weather and downright dangerous in poor weather.
This year it seems like it’s every other weekend.
Another day, another person forgetting Rhode Island is a state that exists, and right between two of the ones mentioned to boot!
I mean, if I have to zoom in the map that much, I’m going to forget it exists, too. If you want to be remembered, I would suggest increasing the size of the state. Heck, even a failed invasion of Connecticut would be enough for us to remember that Rhode Island exists. But if it succeeds, then it’ll be big enough that we won’t forget about it!
Having spent very little time in either state, and thus not being an authority on the matter…
I’m going to suggest Rhode Island annex the eastern half of Connecticut. The western portion is basically an NYC suburb, so pretty much a different state.
Then maybe they’ll get some respect.
Honestly, RI would be 50% larger if you just gave it all of the land east of the Thames. Which is mostly rural, keeps CT cities like New London and Norwich technically in CT, and keeps UConn in CT as well.
I’m cool with that.
Admittedly, the northern half of RI is often called basically a Boston suburb, so it goes both ways.
That said, I support the plan to annex part of CT only if we get to bulldoze what gets conquered and turn it entirely into I95 lanes. Never not managed to get stuck in traffic in that state, regardless of route or time of day.
You could double the number of lanes on I-95 and it would still suck.
MOAR TRAINS!
Rhode island me be the big winner as approaching 3 feet of snow.
Even in places north enough to know better, you still find idiots.
I want, now, to hear more about busses with snow chains. That’s wild, and I’ve lived in places that get far more regular snow than NYC and have never ever seen this.
I was in the famous Halloween blizzard of 91 in Minneapolis in a double length city bus that intentionally rammed a few times, the city bus in front of it to get it unstuck. Heck even last winter I saw garbage trucks with tire chains in the City of St. Paul MN.
See, I would easily expect this for MSP, but not NYC.
They make these really neat contraptions you may see on buses (oddly I haven’t seen them on school buses here locally, but I’ve seen them in lower-snow portions of NY) and dump trucks that deploy when you need the grip and can retract for clean roads:
https://www.westernbus.com/accessories/automatic-tire-chains
I say “you may see on buses”, because they certainly aren’t everywhere and they are also something you’d never notice if you didn’t know they were there.
Otherwise it depends on your area. I know places further north will put studded tires on busses, but I haven’t seen those or normal tire chains here in western NY
I think of those as on ambulances and fire trucks so why not busses.
Yes, I forgot fire trucks but I’ve seen them used there as well
Locally, a viral photo went around today of a guy in a modded Miata dragging an F-150 out of a ditch, the guy shows up at car events pretty regularly and is well known around here. Roads weren’t even that bad, a pickup carefully creeping along at maybe 10ish under the limit shouldn’t have had a problem
I lived in New York for 35 years and I remember the chains.