“Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?” —Job 38:22-23 (KJV)
Winter storm “Ezra” dumped a record 24 inches of snow on Syracuse, New York, in 24 hours and caused high wind alerts for 114 million people across the Northeast United States at the close of 2025 and the start of 2026.
The storm, labeled a “bomb cyclone,” because of its rapidly intensifying low atmospheric pressure that dropped from 29.6 inches Sunday morning, Dec. 28, to 28.8 inches the next morning.
Lake effect snow “smashed another record” on December 30 when Syracuse had the most snow in 80 years, reported the Weather Channel. Lake effect snow is common across the Great Lakes region during the late fall and winter, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
It occurs when cold air, often originating from Canada, moves across the open waters of the Great Lakes. As the cold air passes over the unfrozen and relatively warm waters of the Great Lakes, warmth and moisture are transferred into the lowest portion of the atmosphere.
The air rises, clouds form and grow into a narrow band that produces two to three inches of snow per hour or more, the NWS detailed.
The 24.2 inches of snow was the most recorded on any December 30 in Syracuse, reported the Weather Channel. But the single-day snowfall record remains 34 inches, set on Feb. 15, 1946, according to the Post Standard.
The extreme weather, which simultaneously occurred as an onslaught of historic rain drenched the West Coast, from Southern California to Washington state, is part of the four great judgments that Almighty Allah (God) is bringing upon America in the form of rain, hail, snow, and earthquakes, as foretold by The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam.
“We see them now covering all sides of America, as the Holy Qur’an prophesies curtailing on all her sides,” stated The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad in Chapter 35 of His monumental book, “The Fall of America.”
In it, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad gives the clearest exegesis of the scriptures that foretell the fall of America and the destruction of this present world, explained the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, His National Representative, duringPart 10 of his 58-week lecture series in 2013, “The Time and What Must Be Done.”
“And these judgments would push the people into the center of the country, and there they would realize that it is Allah (God) Who is bringing them and their country to a naught,” Minister Farrakhan continued.
The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad explained that the coastlines, all of them, will be destroyed, but what some of America’s own scientists are labeling global warming and the melting of the glaciers is not an accident, noted Minister Farrakhan.
“You want to say that it’s what we’re doing, and we have some responsibility, but The God of Heaven is doing this. And as these glaciers melt, the waters of the Pacific and the Atlantic are going to rise and as they rise, they are going to overspread and destroy your border,” said Minister Farrakhan.
“It’s happening now, but it will get worse as you continue your rebellion against God and His call that you must do in order to escape loss,” he continued.
Winter Storm Ezra’s frigid temperatures and high winds first struck the Midwest and Great Lakes Region on Dec. 29 and swept across the eastern half of the U.S., heading into the New Year’s holiday.
The heavy lake effect snow bands moved through parts of western New York, where some areas were forecasted to see up to two feet of snow by Jan. 2, reported the Weather Channel’s National Correspondent Justin Michaels.
“The southern end of the storm spawned severe thunderstorms and tornadoes from Tennessee to Ohio, which were responsible for dozens of reports of downed trees and power lines. As the storm moved into the Northeast, that number climbed to a total of 200 wind damage reports,” according to AccuWeather.
Over 100,000 customers in the Great Lakes and Northeast were without power by the afternoon of Dec. 29, with another 100,000 in New York and Pennsylvania, AccuWeather continued.
In addition to tornadoes, the storm caused a rare seiche (a standing, oscillating wave) on Lake Erie. Water levels on the lake dropped by 7.5 feet at the western end last week, allowing people to walk out onto the exposed lakebed, according to AccuWeather.
Jesse Ferrell, AccuWeather meteorologist and senior weather editor, said on social media that waves up to 16 feet were reported on Lake Ontario near Oswego, New York.
On the afternoon of Dec. 29, west winds caused water levels at Toledo, Ohio, to fall to nearly seven feet below normal, while levels at Buffalo, New York, increased by the same amount as the entire volume of the lake was displaced eastward.
At Maumee Bay State Park in Oregon, Ohio, more than 650 feet of lakebed was exposed as the waters receded.
On Dec. 30, according to the Weather Channel, blizzard-like conditions trapped drivers in the city of Marquette in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula while toppling trees and power lines.
And per AccuWeather, winds gusted to 70 mph at Minneapolis Shoal on northern Lake Michigan, 72 mph at Sault Ste. Marie on eastern Lake Superior, and 72 mph at a sensor on the Buffalo Skyway at the eastern tip of Lake Erie. Winds at the Buffalo airport gusted to 79 mph, nearing that station’s all-time high wind gust record of just 82 mph.
The National Weather Service (NWS) office in Chicago confirmed five tornadoes in their warning area on Dec. 29, including two twisters that ranked EF1 (86-110 mph) on the Enhanced Fujita Scale (based on wind speeds).
In Haubstadt, Indiana, another EF1 tornado was confirmed by the NWS office in Paducah. In addition, winds also gusted to 70 mph at a weather station in Indianapolis, Indiana.
More than 32,000 flights were delayed and 1,700 were cancelled on the first day of the storm by New Year’s Eve. That decreased to more than 17,000 delays and 577 cancellations on New Year’s Day.
“Job, in the Bible [Job 38:22-23 KJV], prophesied that Allah (God) has the snow and ice to use as His weapon in the day of war and battle against the wicked. … Go read it for yourself and then go look at the weather. He’s fulfilling His pledge,” stated Minister Farrakhan, during his 2013 “The Time and What Must Be Done” lecture series.
Minister Farrakhan continued, referencing Chapter 35 of “The Fall of America” stating, “We hear and read in the newspapers today of how great, hill-like mountains of snow are pushing down from the north not only in the northern states of Minnesota, North and South Dakotas and Montana;
But now the snow is in the New England states and they are declared to be disaster areas. The announcer of the disaster of snow in the New England States said that there have never been such great quantities of snow.”
“Now He wrote this 40 years ago,” said Minister Farrakhan, speaking about his teacher, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. “It’s even greater today, showing you that a Man of God and His Word is never outdated. It’s always on time,” he added.
Sister Landra Muhammad is an author and disaster preparedness researcher. She said that Winter Storm Ezra and recent weather events remind her of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s divine guidance to learn emergency management, which he gave during Saviours’ Day 2010.
The difference between disaster preparedness and emergency management is that the latter contains four parts, she said.
“One is mitigation, which is preparing your area before the storm. … Preparedness, before the trouble. You have response, which is correcting what takes place after a weather event. And you have recovery, which is self-explanatory. You’re recovering,” stated Sis. Landra Muhammad.
Disaster preparedness is how people prepare themselves, she explained. “Emergency management is how we collectively protect and restore our communities,” she added.
“Learn from this experience, because there’s another one coming soon behind it. These are teachable moments, and if we don’t learn the lesson from one storm, we’re going to have another storm that repeats the lesson and will repeat and repeat, until we learn the lesson,” said Sis. Landra Muhammad.
The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad forewarned that Allah (God) would continue to punish America through the forces of nature. However, He also taught the importance of preparing for these times. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, like his teacher, also taught on the critical need for disaster preparedness.
He led a delegation to Cuba in 2006 to study that government’s disaster-preparedness management and the island’s infrastructure.
“Those who are scripturally prepared know that it is prophesied that we would be living at a time of wars and rumors of wars, pestilence, famine and earthquakes in diverse places,” Minister Farrakhan said during the press conference in Cuba.
“We are witnessing terrifying disasters afflicting the people of the world and these disasters are now afflicting the United States of America. Believing that these prophesies will be fulfilled, we felt that it is our duty to learn as much as we can.
So that we can return to the United States and prepare documents on disaster preparedness, and in conjunction with local, state and federal government, do all we can to prepare the American people, and our people in particular, for coming disasters.”