New York City cinemas are shuttering and Broadway performances are canceled as a historic blizzard, dubbed Winter Storm Hernando, continues to cripple the Northeast. The storm, which intensified into a bomb cyclone, has already dumped over 20 inches of snow in Central Park and 22.5 inches in Islip, New York, according to weather reports.
AMC Entertainment has closed 60 locations across New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Boston, impacting moviegoing plans for hundreds of thousands. While the box office is currently in a slower period following the Presidents Day weekend, the closures nonetheless represent a significant disruption. “It’s not like it’s a Monday in July,” noted one distribution source. Some Manhattan cinemas, including the Paris Theater, AMC Lincoln Square, Regal Union Square, and Regal Times Square, are expected to reopen later today as conditions improve.
The storm has caused widespread power outages, leaving approximately 600,000 households without electricity. The combination of heavy snowfall and strong winds, with gusts reaching 84 mph on Montauk, Long Island, has created treacherous conditions. FlightAware reports over 10,000 flights have been canceled as of Monday, February 23, 2026.
Broadway also suspended performances for a second consecutive day due to the blizzard. The closures follow a Presidents Day weekend that saw domestic box office receipts of $75.2 million, down 4% from the same frame last year, according to Comscore. “Goat” topped the box office with $16.8 million for the weekend, bringing its cumulative total to $58.1 million domestically and $102.1 million worldwide. Warner Bros/MRC’s “Wuthering Heights” earned $14 million in its second weekend, with a running cume of $59.8 million.
The rapid intensification of the storm met the criteria for a bomb cyclone, with the central pressure plunging 40 millibars in 24 hours, according to NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center. Providence, Rhode Island, broke its all-time snowstorm record with 32.4 inches of snow, surpassing the previous record set during the Blizzard of ’78. The storm’s snowfall rates earlier Monday reached 1 to 3 inches per hour from the Delmarva Peninsula to New England.
