❄️ No Salt, No Problem (Actually Several Problems)
Court halts Shaw Festival demolition, Airbnb watchers get a three-year deal, and Niagara's roads are now seasoned to taste
🌊 The Falls
Saturday, February 21, 2026
All the news that’s fit to get wet
☁️ Weather Report
🇺🇸 Niagara Falls, NY
Currently: 33°F and snowing — which, by February 21st standards, is basically spring
Day High (°F) Conditions Today (Sat) 34°F Light snow showers, 25% chance Sunday 35°F Snow showers, 35% chance — keep that shovel handy Monday 29°F More snow, 35% chance — oh good Tuesday 30°F Snow likely, 20% chance — a brief respite Wednesday 38°F Snow possible, 35% — nearly tropical
📡 Full NWS Forecast for Niagara Falls, NY
🇨🇦 Niagara Falls, ON
Currently: 1°C with light rain and snow mix — you know, the kind of weather that is worse than either rain OR snow but somehow both at once
Day High (°C) Conditions Today (Sat) +2°C Flurries, risk of freezing drizzle — 40% chance Sunday +2°C Periods of snow, 2 cm possible Monday -1°C Flurries, then plummets to -13°C overnight. Classic. Tuesday -6°C Mix of sun and cloud (sun! a myth! a rumour!) Wednesday +2°C Flurries again, naturally
📡 Full Environment Canada Forecast for Niagara Falls, ON
Reminder: Niagara Falls ON is currently mixing its road salt with sand due to a province-wide shortage. Drive accordingly — and maybe don’t lick the road.
🗽 NY Side News
1. 📉 Crime Down 35% in the Cataract City — Yes, Really
Numbers compiled by New York’s Department of Criminal Justice Services show that every category of criminal activity in Niagara Falls has been on a steep decline over the past five years. The Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) program, a state-funded initiative that has changed how police approach gun crime, gets much of the credit. Shooting incidents where victims were hit or injured dropped nearly half over a five-year average, and there were no gun-involved homicides in 2024 whatsoever. Former Falls Police Superintendent John Faso’s advice: “Look at the numbers.” We looked. Not bad, Cataract City, not bad at all.
2. 🏠 The Airbnb Police Are Staying — City Council Extends STR Contract
If you’ve been renting your Falls-adjacent spare bedroom to tourists without proper permits, sleep less soundly: the Niagara Falls City Council has approved a three-year extension — running through February 17, 2029 — of its contract with Granicus, the Denver-based firm hired to monitor compliance with the city’s Short-Term Rental ordinance. The deal runs $36,907.06 a year, which sounds like a lot until you realize Granicus serves 2,500 local governments and 48 of the 50 largest U.S. cities. The vote was 4-1, with Council Member Vincent Cauley (R) the lone dissenter. Granicus handles address identification, compliance monitoring, tax collection, and a 24/7 complaint hotline. So the next time your neighbor’s Airbnb guests are doing keg stands at 2am with a view of the gorge, there’s someone to call — officially.
3. 🐟 The Big Fish Show Is Still On — Last Day Is Tomorrow!
The 11th annual Greater Niagara Fishing Expo wraps up tomorrow, Sunday February 22, at the Niagara Falls Convention Center (101 Old Falls St.). It’s the biggest freshwater fishing show in New York State — over 170 exhibitor booths, hundreds of hours of seminars covering everything from bass to fly fishing to kayak fishing. New this year: a partnership with Catching Dreams Charters, providing free charter fishing trips to kids battling pediatric cancer. Kids 12 and under get in free (limit two per paying adult). The Sunday Kids Fishing Clinic runs 11am–1pm. If you have a case of February cabin fever and any interest whatsoever in anything involving a hook, go.
(Niagara Gazette | niagarafishingexpo.com)
4. 💰 Niagara County Sales Tax Up 5% Despite Canadian Slump
Despite a drop in Canadian border crossings that had some hand-wringers predicting economic doom, Niagara County’s 2025 sales tax revenues came in strong: $102,944,000, up more than $5.4 million over 2024 — a 5%+ increase. Legislature Chairman Mike Hill credited aggressive tourism marketing in the Northeast and an intentional push to diversify the economic base so no single revenue sector (like, say, duty-free candy and cheap gas) can sink the whole ship. Proof that the Cataract City’s economy is more resilient than its potholes are deep. (Though the potholes are very deep.)
5. 🌉 Bridge Commission Gets New Ontario Appointment — And New Officers for 2026
The Niagara Falls Bridge Commission, the bi-national body overseeing the Rainbow, Whirlpool, and Lewiston-Queenston bridges, announced this week that Brad Sutherland — Director of Business Development at Air Canada — has been appointed to the board by Premier Doug Ford. Meanwhile, the commission elected its 2026 officers: Lindsay DiCosimo Merani of Ontario as Chairperson and Frank Soda of New York as Vice Chairperson. In case you’ve ever wondered who’s in charge of that bridge you cross without thinking about twice a year, now you know.
(Niagara Gazette | niagarafallsbridges.com)
6. 🧒 Youth, Air, and the Hard Truth About Niagara Falls, NY
A deep-dive report from Inside Climate News this month follows two Niagara Falls High School teens — Julissa Hernandez and Donte West — who are confronting an uncomfortable truth: Niagara County has air pollution and suicide rates higher than the state average, and there may be a link between the two. Hernandez, who had to quit track because of asthma, and West are part of a generation trying to change the story of a city that was once celebrated as the honeymoon capital of the world. It’s a sobering read, and an important one.
If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988). Help is available.
🍁 Ontario Side News
1. 🎭 Court Halts Royal George Theatre Demolition — For Now
Drama at the Shaw Festival! An Ontario court has issued a temporary stay halting the teardown of the historic Royal George Theatre on Queen Street in Niagara-on-the-Lake, after Centurion Building Corporation — a local NOTL builder — launched a judicial review alleging the town didn’t properly follow the Ontario Heritage Act and Planning Act before green-lighting demolition. Shaw, which received $35 million in provincial funding for the rebuild, says it followed all proper procedures. The court is expected to rule near the end of February. Two historic Victoria Street homes on the property have already been knocked down; the theatre and box office haven’t been touched yet. Heritage lovers, proceed to your chaises longues.
(Niagara Now | Buffalo Toronto Public Media)
2. 🧂 Ontario’s Road Salt Shortage Hits Niagara Falls — Cue the Sand
Niagara Falls, ON has confirmed it won’t receive its full annual supply of road salt this winter, thanks to a province-wide shortage caused by an unusually snowy season, supply chain chaos, and general 2026 vibes. The city is now mixing salt with sand — a method usually reserved for residential streets — and spreading it across all roads and sidewalks. It works! Sort of. Crews may need to plow more frequently since the sand-mix doesn’t melt snow as aggressively as straight salt. Residents are advised to drive carefully, give extra stopping distance, and accept that spring sweeping will take longer. In other words: if your road looks a bit gritty right now, that’s a feature, not a bug.
(City of Niagara Falls | Niagara Daily News)
3. ❄️ The Frozen Falls: A Once-in-a-Decade Winter Spectacle
In case you haven’t been outside lately (understandable), Niagara Falls has produced its most impressive ice formations in about a decade this winter, thanks to the brutal cold snap that gripped southern Ontario in early February. The falls haven’t frozen solid — water still roars underneath — but the ice build-up at the base and the mist formations created a genuinely spectacular scene. Niagara Parks called it a “remarkable winter scene” and ran special programming around it over Family Day weekend. Journey Behind the Falls (open 10am–5pm, adults $28) and the Niagara Parks Power Station tunnel viewing platform are your best bets for still catching the winter views.
(CTV News)
4. 🎻 Pickleball Gets the Boot (Again) in Virgil
For the second time in recent memory, the pickleball courts at Virgil Sports Park in Niagara-on-the-Lake are looking like a no-go for the spring and summer season. A prior two-year ban due to noise complaints from neighbours — the smack of a paddle on a wiffle ball, apparently, is the sound of civilization in decline — never fully resolved the underlying tension. The divide is as philosophical as it is acoustic: should a sports park prioritize the people who live next to it or the people who want to use it? The courts sit idle. The neighbourhood breathes. The pickleball paddles weep, silently.
5. 🏛️ Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum: Go Now, Before the Renos
The Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum is currently in the midst of “Free February” — free admission all month. Here’s the kicker: next February, the museum will be undergoing extensive renovations and won’t be offering the same programming. So if you’ve been meaning to go and keep putting it off, you’ve got about a week left to see it at its current best, for exactly $0. They’ve also been running Black History Month events highlighting Black history in Canada and the United States all month long.
6. 🌡️ Heartland Forest’s WinterFest — Today!
If you’re looking for something to actually do on this grey, damp, vaguely-snowing Saturday, Heartland Forest in Niagara Falls, ON is hosting WinterFest today. Heartland Forest is an inclusive nature park — one of the region’s quiet gems — and their winter events are genuinely fun for families, including those with children and adults with disabilities. Worth getting off the couch for.
(City of Niagara Falls Events)
📅 Events: Next Few Days
Today — Saturday, Feb 21
- 🌲 Heartland Forest WinterFest — Niagara Falls, ON
Sunday, Feb 22
- 🐟 Greater Niagara Fishing Expo — Last day! Niagara Falls Convention Center, NY
- 🎣 Kids Fishing Clinic — 11am–1pm, Niagara Falls Convention Center, NY
Every Day
- 💡 Falls Illumination — 5:30pm–1:00am, both sides of the river
- 🦋 Butterfly Conservatory — Niagara Falls, ON
- ⚡ Niagara Parks Power Station & Tunnel — 10am–5pm, Niagara Falls, ON
- 🌊 Cave of the Winds — 9am–4pm, Niagara Falls, NY
- 🏰 Old Fort Niagara — Wed–Sun, 10am–4pm, Youngstown, NY
Thursday, Feb 26
- 💅 Redefining Beauty: Health & Wellness Symposium — Niagara Falls, ON
📜 On This Day — A Niagara History Minute
Because if you live here, the whole world’s history is really just context for our history.
February 21, 1887 — The Ice Bridge Was Still a Great Idea (For Now)
On this date in 1887, tourists were happily strolling across the Niagara Ice Bridge — the massive ice formation that typically spans the gorge between the American and Canadian shores in deep winter. For most of the 19th century, the Ice Bridge was a full-on tourist attraction: vendors set up food stalls on it, couples posed for photographs, and adventurous souls wandered across the international boundary line with no passport required (immigration officials, naturally, were nowhere near). It seemed like a perfect arrangement.
It remained a perfect arrangement until February 4, 1912, when the ice broke off without warning, carrying three people — a young Canadian couple and a visiting American — to their deaths in the gorge. After that, walking on the Ice Bridge was permanently banned. Today, you’re still welcome to look at it from the gorge trail. That’s it. That’s the whole activity.
(Niagara Falls Tourism History)
February 21, 1901 — Annie Taylor’s Final Preparations (Sort Of)
By this week in 1901, a 63-year-old widowed schoolteacher named Annie Edson Taylor — born in Auburn, NY, buried in Niagara Falls, NY — was deep in the planning stages of what would become the most famous stunt in Niagara history. She had commissioned a custom oak barrel from a local cooper and was preparing to become the first person to ever go over the Horseshoe Falls and survive. She finally did it on October 24, 1901 — her birthday — emerging from the barrel with a cut on her forehead and the immortal words: “Nobody ought ever do that again.”
She was right. She was also famously broke for the rest of her life: her manager ran off with her barrel and her savings. She spent her final years selling signed postcards at a souvenir stand near the falls she had conquered. You can visit her grave at Oakwood Cemetery right here in Niagara Falls, NY.
(discoverniagara.org | niagarafallsinfo.com)
February 21, 1893 — The Contract That Lit Up the World
On this date in 1893, after years of heated debate between Thomas Edison (team Direct Current) and Nikola Tesla (team Alternating Current), the Cataract Construction Company awarded the contract to harness Niagara Falls’ power to the Westinghouse Electric Company — using Tesla’s polyphase AC system. By August 1895, the Adams Power Plant on the NY side was sending electricity to local industries. By November 1896, it was powering the city of Buffalo, 20 miles away. It was the first large-scale alternating current generating plant in the world, and it’s the reason your lights work today — wherever you are.
The Adams Power Plant Transformer House still stands in Niagara Falls, NY and is a National Historic Landmark. Tesla has a statue in Queen Victoria Park on the Ontario side. Edison has... a lesser legacy in these parts.
(discoverniagara.org | Wikipedia)
February 21, 1848 — Countdown to the Day the Falls Went Silent
Thirty-six days from today — on March 29, 1848 — an enormous ice jam at the mouth of the Niagara River on Lake Erie will completely cut off the flow of water over Niagara Falls for nearly 30 hours. This has happened exactly once in recorded history. When word spread that the falls had stopped, locals thought it was the end of the world. Once they realized it was just ice, thousands came to walk the dry riverbed, picking up War of 1812 souvenirs — muskets, tomahawks, bayonets — that had been sitting on the bottom for 35 years. The U.S. Cavalry apparently just... rode around the exposed riverbed for fun. Eventually the wind shifted, the ice dam broke, and Niagara Falls has been flowing continuously ever since.
We mention this now because it is a wonderfully weird piece of local history and because spring is 36 days away, which feels relevant.
🌉 Across the Border
Both sides of the river are doing that very February thing of being relentlessly grey, salty (or not salty enough, if you’re ON), and endearing in their own stubborn way. The ice formations that made the Falls look like a fantasy movie set are still partially visible, though the freeze-thaw cycle has started its annual assault on pavement everywhere from Hyde Park Boulevard to Queen Street in NOTL.
The Canadian crossings into Buffalo and Niagara Falls remain down from their 2024 highs — tariff anxiety, a softer Canadian dollar, and general diplomatic frostiness have kept a lot of Ontario shoppers home. And yet: a Canadian company just opened a laser-cutting operation on Hyde Park Blvd, Niagara County’s economy grew 5%, and a Toronto Air Canada exec just joined the Bridge Commission board. The river connects us even when the politics try to do otherwise.
Stay dry out there. Or don’t — the Falls are wetter than anything you’ll encounter today.
🌊 The Falls — “We cover both sides so you don’t have to cross in this weather.”
