Ice Storm — Southern Herkimer, New York

2025-12-28 to 2025-12-29 · Southern Herkimer, New York

Wider weather episode

Sub-freezing temperatures ahead of an approaching warm front resulted in a period of accumulating freezing rain for all of eastern New York during the late afternoon and evening hours on December 28, 2025 into the overnight or morning hours on December 29, 2025. As temperatures rose above freezing, precipitation eventually changed to plain rain for many areas except across portions of the Upper Hudson Valley, Adirondacks, and Mohawk Valley, which remained at or below freezing until later Monday morning.

Overall liquid equivalent precipitation amounts varied across the region with the greatest amounts (0.75 to 1.50 inches) occurring across areas north and west of the Capital Region. Sporadic flat ice accumulation reports estimated an approximate 30-40% ice accretion rate for many areas except 40-60% for areas north and west of the Capital Region, where the higher QPF amounts occurred. As a result, flat ice accumulations of a light glaze to 0.25 inches occurred for many areas except pockets of 0.40 to 0.75 inches across the Upper Hudson Valley, Adirondacks and Mohawk Valley.

The accumulation of ice on trees and power lines led to isolated to numerous power outages with the greatest coverage of outages occurring across Herkimer, Hamilton, Fulton, Montgomery and Saratoga counties.

The Governor of New York issued a state of emergency in Albany, Columbia, Dutchess, Fulton, Greene, Herkimer, Montgomery, Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie, Rensselaer, and Ulster Counties on December 26th that extended through December 29th due to the imminent danger the resulting conditions of the active pattern over these days posed to public transportation, utility services, public health, and public safety systems.

Key impacts: travel delays, power outages, state of emergency.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1305654. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.