The sprawling January winter storm, a 2,000‑mile‑long behemoth stretching from Mexico and Texas all the way to Maine and into Canada, has been unofficially dubbed Winter Storm Fern by The Weather Channel and “Snowmageddon 2026” by everyone stuck shoveling their driveway twice a day.
It spun up from an upper‑level low over the Pacific on January 22, then organized over the central U.S., flinging out bands of snow, sleet, and freezing rain as it marched east.
A massive winter storm dumped sleet, freezing rain and snow across much of the U.S. on Sunday, bringing subzero temperatures and halting air and road traffic. Tree branches and power lines snapped under the weight of ice, and hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in the Southeast were left without electricity.The ice and snowfall were expected to continue into Monday followed by very low temperatures which could cause “dangerous travel and infrastructure impacts” for days, the National Weather Service said.Heavy snow was falling from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast, while “catastrophic ice accumulation” threatened from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.“It is a unique storm in the sense that it is so widespread,” weather service meteorologist Allison Santorelli said in a phone interview. “It was affecting areas all the way from New Mexico, Texas, all the way into New England, so we’re talking like a 2,000-mile spread.”
And as several Northeastern states have supposedly embraced “clean energy” and “renewables”, the region relied heavily on oil (and some remaining coal) during this severe weather event because natural‑gas supply is constrained, and those constraints are tied to limited pipeline capacity that has been politically and regulatorily difficult to expand.
On January 21, below average temperatures led to a recorded peak hourly demand of 19,600 megawatts (MW) in ISO-New England (ISO-NE), the region’s grid operator.Although demand was elevated, it was lower than the 20,308 MW that ISO-NE forecast peak demand would be in its 2024/2025 winter assessment, EIA said. However, a significant share of generating capacity to meet demand during this time came from sources that rarely operate.Between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. eastern time (ET) on January 20, and between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. on January 21, oil-burning plants provided more electricity to the ISO-NE grid than gas burners, which is relatively uncommon. That group of oil burners provided more than 4,000 MW of electricity per hour to the grid between 7:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m.
The following pipelines that could have been serviced the Northeast include the following:
When the energy bills come due next month, the expense may seem like “inflation,” but it is actually the result of poor choices by politicos who don’t understand the difference between aspiration and engineering.
The good news for Americans living in the Northeast who may regret their political leaders’ eco-activist minions is that at least two of the pipelines may actually get built.
To begin with, and as noted above, the Constitution Pipeline is in a revival and permitting phase, though not yet under active construction. The project remains highly contested but is being pushed forward again by its developer, Williams Companies, with strong backing from the Trump administration.
On Jan. 8, Williams applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reissue a certificate to allow the construction of the Constitution Pipeline, a 124-mile pipeline to carry gas from Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, to markets in New York and New England.FERC had originally authorized the pipeline in 2014, but Williams cancelled it in 2020 following years of opposition from environmental groups and landowners. The company also struggled to get required permits to fell trees and disturb wetlands from federal and state regulators.President Donald Trump last April said he wants to see the pipeline built, suggesting he might “use the extraordinary powers of the federal government.”
Additionally, the FERC reissued its certificate of public convenience and necessity for the Northeast Supply Enhancement project (NESE) this past summer. The pipeline is now fully permitted at the state and federal levels and re‑certified, with construction targeted to start in 2026 and in‑service in late 2027.
According to Williams Transco, the NESE pipeline project will add enough capacity to supply natural gas to the equivalent of 2.3 million homes, create about 2,000 jobs, and generate $548 million in economic activity.As of now, the NESE project is greenlit, with construction expected to commence before the end of the year and completion slated for the end of 2027. The project, however, will be closely monitored by environmental groups and other opponents of the plan, many of which indicated their intent to bring lawsuits for each purported violation of state and federal environmental laws. The Natural Resources Defense Council, for example, has already announced that it will be challenging the New York and New Jersey permit approvals in federal court.
As another brutal winter bears down and there are reports indicating a “new ice age”, the lesson from Snowmeggedon 2026 couldn’t be clearer: energy security begins with accessibility.
Natural gas remains the most practical bridge between affordability and reliability, yet Northeast political leadership still treats it like a political taboo. Expanding pipeline capacity isn’t a step backward, but an insurance policy against freezing homes, blackouts, and skyrocketing fuel costs when wind turbines clog, and solar panels vanish under snow.
If the climate really is tilting colder, investing in robust gas infrastructure may prove not just wise policy, but a matter of survival..both economically and in reality.
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