Heh, I wrote up a couple posts throughout the spring semester but never got around to publishing them. So here’s a super belated post about the snow.

The snowstorm on January 25-26, 2026, was the eighth largest snowstorm in the history of Boston, accumulating 23.2 inches of snow. This ranks just after the blizzard in January 2022, during my sophomore year (23.6 inches of snow).

I remember in 2022, I had just come back to Boston after winter break and was sitting in my dorm room. It was very hot due to the uncontrollable heater, so I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. But all of a sudden, our fire alarm went off! I threw on as many layers as I could and evacuated into the blizzard, but the snow and wind were so crazy I couldn’t get much farther than the dorm next door.

Luckily this year, I was never forced out of my warm apartment. MIT completely shut down, but Harvard decided to still have its first day of classes on 1/26 (while the snow was falling). My class operated on Zoom, but undergraduate students had to trek across Harvard yard for their first classes, poor them… Here’s some photos of the snowstorm:

Following the snow, temperatures stayed below 25 F for a couple weeks, so the snow never melted. I bought my first thermals and wool socks in my 5.5 years here. On the following Wednesday, I had to get to my class by 9:30 am. Half of the Red Line (one of the subway lines in Boston) trains broke down due to the low temperatures, and more people were taking public transit than usual because their cars were buried in the snow. This meant that people were waiting up to 60 minutes to get on a Red Line train!

My classmates warned me about the delays from an earlier stop, and the uber for that 2 mile drive was $75, so I walked to class. Later that evening, I decided to avoid the Red Line home by taking the Green Line instead, to get sandwiches at the infamous All’Antico Vinaio in Copley. There are four Green Line routes, and all four go to the Copley stop, as shown below (travel direction right to left):

So I just chose the first train that arrived at the station. But at the Copley stop, my cabin’s doors broke! The doors wouldn’t open! I was stuck! We were all pounding on the doors, hoping the driver would notice and help, but NOPE the train kept going. So I gave up on the sandwiches and planned to just get off at the next stop to go back to campus.

I kept waiting for them to say “next stop, Hynes”, but after a few stops I realized I was on the ONE ROUTE that doesn’t go to Hynes! The next stop was now Northeastern, which I’ve never been to before. I looked at my maps app, but due to the cold my phone battery dropped to 7% and might die any minute. I quickly looked up a walking route from the next stop to a nearby fast-food chain and memorized the map. But I had totally forgotten that there were feet of uncleared snow covering the walking routes. I walked around a snow-filled park in the dark for a mile until I reached the fast-food, where I charged my phone and found a route home. What an adventure.

That wasn’t the end of the snow – a blizzard hit the city February 22-24, 2026. It cancelled school again but I don’t have any photos, stories, or memories at all of it, so maybe it wasn’t as crazy. Or maybe I’ve been desensitized to snowfall XD

This winter and spring was incredibly cold. I don’t think the blizzard snow melted until like, late March or April or something. It only recently got warm in Boston; was still in the 50s mid-May, but now it seems to consistently reach at least 65. On the bright side, we had beautiful winter scenery (such as the background photo of this post!), and maybe this summer will be nice and cool too… I hope!

Until next (much overdue) post,
Jan