The Daily: 27 January 2026

Central Vermont is closed for the foreseeable future. Maybe all of Vermont. There is no news from elsewhere right now. Probably not a good sign…

However, the power is on here. The temperature finally topped 10°F for a few hours — for the first time in about a week. And the crazy local oil-delivery guys came out today to fill my tank, trundling through about two feet of snow and the plow-mountain along the side of the road to do so. So, I’m doing tolerably well… I guess.

At these temperatures, the snow is very light, so I don’t expect there will be many downed limbs and power lines. It is, however, about three feet deep already and apparently not inclined to stop. The local weather folks have pushed the end of the storm out to Tuesday afternoon. It’s been snowing since Sunday morning. So we’re looking at maybe another couple feet if it truly lasts as long as they’re forecasting.

This is the most ridiculously massive storm I’ve ever seen. At one point the monster was spread out from New Mexico to New York. This is one storm cell, about 2400 miles long. It is somewhat narrower north to south, but it still managed to cover from Memphis to Chicago. Right now, it is dumping snow in a devastating arc wrapping from Connecticut to Newfoundland. And that’s only what the broken radar is saying… which is also saying that it is not snowing here… when it is… So, who know how much more precipitation is actually falling…

That’s been the most disturbing thing about this storm. This is an unprecedented system in terms of size and duration. But if you look at Weather Underground right now, you’d think not much was going on in my part of the world, nor in many other places. Radar has just been wrong all over the place. It was not correct on Saturday when it was snowing heavily on my parents’ home in Indiana. Radar showed mostly clear skies. It was not correct on Sunday when it said Brooklyn was getting mostly rain and ice. They’ve received record snowfall (which for them is a bit shy of a foot… but it was, in fact, snowing and about 18°F… rain is not possible at that temperature…). And it’s been wrong here the whole time, with blue snow blobs here and there on the radar map over Vermont and the forecast saying that we’re maybe going to have “snow showers” later — while I’m watching it pile up outside my window and there is no news from many parts of the state.

I feel like I’m being gaslit by weather apps… It’s disorienting… and, for me, infuriating. How stupid do you think I am!

Now, I don’t think we’re going to have record snow here, but that’s only because Vermont gets a lot of snow. Because this is the worst storm in many years. And that’s here in Vermont. It’s also the worst storm in most of the rest of the country, record setting, in fact, busting records of all kinds from Dallas to Boston. Perhaps it’s still setting records up there in Newfoundland…

And most of it was happening at the same time. Because this storm is that huge.

Winter weather systems shouldn’t be this huge. It shouldn’t be possible to maintain system integrity over this much area, over vastly different climatic regions, and over what is coming up on five days in duration. Five days of dumping water over three-quarters of a continent. How does it hold that much moisture! Where is the water coming from! Where is it getting the energy!

For comparison, this winter storm was twice the width of the largest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded — Hurricane Sandy, in 2012, at 1200 miles in diameter. It has covered about the same geographical area as the largest tropical storm ever recorded — Typhoon Tip, in 1979, 1300 miles in diameter, or about 1.33 million square miles. It may be the largest continuous winter storm in history. I can find nothing else on the scale of this storm. Many storms have dumped more snow or had fiercer winds, but most of those were smaller storm cells that travelled a long distance — or that developed and then stalled over one area for many days.

And that’s another record I’m having a hard time confirming. This single storm has lasted from Thursday evening in New Mexico and is still dumping on Monday evening in New England and places east, with forecasts saying it may last for another 24 hours. That’s five days of intense precipitation. That’s unheard of! Even most hurricanes, supercharged by tropical heat and oceanic moisture, barely last a day or so after making landfall — because, once over land, a storm loses energy and moisture.

But we’ve heated the atmosphere so much that a storm in the depths of winter — which normally means low in both energy and moisture — can dump sleet and snow across much of the continental interior for at least four days running.

You might think I’m rambling to no point — on the weather of all banal things. Surely other recent events are more important right now? Venezuela, Greenland, Davos. Renee Good, Alex Pretti. A doddering imbecile making a bid to be the first czar of America. Weather does seem a little irrelevant.

Except let me point out that the death toll from this storm is at two dozen and rising. There are millions of people without power and water as I type. This, in the middle of winter, so undoubtedly the unofficial death toll is already higher and could be an order of magnitude worse by the end of this storm.

And then let me point out that all these headlines are interrelated. These are not discreet disasters and tragedies. These are all results of the very same actions made by the wealthiest people in this country (and a very few from other places). All of this is tied to decisions made by a very few people whose goals are to arrogate wealth and power for themselves at any cost. These deaths are but the latest cost.

This storm is cold-blooded murder, just the same as the execution-style shootings in Minneapolis. Moreover, it is premeditated. By many decades. Because that’s how long oil company executives have known that their industry would dangerously overheat this planet and have, nevertheless, carried on with their profiteering, consequences be damned. They knew this storm and many more just like it would happen, and they knew exactly how deadly it would be. But they hid this information and kept right on with business as usual, consciously choosing short-term increases in personal monetary wealth over future storms and distant harms. Harms to us… to subsidize their executive compensation packages…

And it’s not just oil companies. All these oligarchs — Zuckerberg and Bezos to Murdoch and Buffet — they know, and have known for decades, just how much harm they are unleashing on the world in the name of their own personal gain.

Moreover, most of the people who have insisted on raping our world of its resources — raping us as well, figuratively and literally — are now directly involved in the travesty in Washington. They must be to grease the wheels of business…

Of course, these murderers may publicly decry the horrors in Minneapolis, but they will not ever admit culpability. Nor will they offer any aid to victims, nor put any pressure on the White House to end this. They may even be so willfully, stupidly blind that they don’t see the blood on their own hands, nor the webs of injustice and harm that tie them directly to the masked sociopaths set upon our cities. They will turn away from the old couple found frozen dead in their apartment or the ambulance that wrecked on the way to the hospital, just as they will ignore the children who are ripped from their parents and the nurse who just tried to help a lady get up off the street.

And they will keep us all looking away from the weather.

A less paranoid person then I am can probably start to see the connections between the decimated National Weather Service, radar that does not read the current conditions, forecasts that downplay a storm’s strength, reporting that focuses on business loss over human harm and the ownership of media and messaging in this culture. Truly, it’s not paranoia if it is, in fact, happening…

So… while I am doing tolerably well, I am heartsick. All of this could have been prevented. Decades ago. But that ship has long sailed… and sunk… Still, these most recent damages might have been much mitigated if we were better prepared. Granted, I don’t know how you prepare for ICE, but there are many ways to deal with snow… But preparing would mean admitting that it is happening, and we are not allowed to do that. Because any dolt can see that this is not natural. A winter storm can’t become this enormous and energetic without the human choices made to continue pumping carbon into our atmosphere — among other intentional attacks on the biosphere.

Also… admitting that it is happening and preparing for it means that business stops while people take care of their own safety needs. People should be home, should be looking after themselves and their neighbors, not after customers and clients. Nobody should be traveling. Nobody should be working except for those who are dealing with emergencies. (Actual emergencies, not loss of revenue…) Nothing should be open except emergency services and warming centers. Nothing should be happening out there in the snow.

(And, indeed, in some sensical communities, or at least those with long experience with snow, nothing is happening… it is dead quiet and dark out there…)

But this is also not allowed. Because those very same people who are making murderous decisions will lose money if we all stay home and stay safe while the storm rages…

Though I live in sensible Vermont, a whole state of people who know just how deadly serious this storm is, I probably will have to go to work tomorrow. Now, there is absolutely nothing about my job that needs to be done tomorrow. Or needs to be done at all. But still… I will have to shovel whatever snow has fallen overnight to make a path to my garage. I will have to carve out a break in the mountain of snow and grit that the city plows have piled up alongside the road in front of my driveway. I will have to try to safely get down off this snowy hillside where my house perches. Then I will have to try to get up the snowy hill to my office. And then I will repeat all that at the end of the day… All to put a bit more credit on the bank’s books. Maybe. It’s just as likely that I will sit there, pretending to be busy, doing nothing productive at all… Because who’s going to be out banking in this weather… Is that not insane?

And all that useless risk is the result of decisions made by the bank’s upper management. People who largely work at home whenever they desire. Any harm from their decision will fall on me and my pleb co-workers. Any reward from the risks taken goes to them. And they are perfectly aware of this. They are perfectly content to risk my life in the pursuit of a bit more money for themselves.

My employer is this murderous, psychopathic culture in microcosm. My bank may have no power nationally, but they do contribute directly to the devastation and destruction and do nothing to mitigate harm from their decisions. Decisions made by people, not some abstract corporate entity. That is crucial to understand. These are people, not the market, not business, not ineffable forces. People. We all know the names of these people who decide to harm us… We all see the blood on their hands.

Maybe it’s time we start to call them on it…

Or, even better, refuse… to the extent that we are able…

No more victims dying in the streets. No more victims dying as they try to comply with these decisions made by murderers. No more victims. It’s our world… Our lives… And we say no more…

It’s time to take care of ourselves.

Because the storm is here…

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©Elizabeth Anker 2026