A blizzard swept through the heavily populated northeastern United States on Tuesday, grounding thousands of flights, canceling classes and pummeling those who ventured out onto snow-bound streets.
Some 50 million people from Pennsylvania to Maine faced a "rapidly intensifying nor'easter" over the course of the day that was unusual for striking so late in the winter, according to the National Weather Service. Many heeded official advice to stay home.
The storm left Washington's celebrated cherry trees, a tourist attraction and an early herald of spring, encased in ice.
The NWS sharply dialed back forecasts for some areas, notably New York City, where residents had been warned to steel themselves for potentially record-breaking snow.
By afternoon, as snow turned to dwindling sleet, city officials were anticipating that Wednesday's morning rush hour would be largely back to normal and that schools would reopen. Connecticut officials said roads there would reopen to general traffic as early as 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
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Still, some in the region could expect up to 2 feet of snow by early Wednesday, the weather service predicted, with the worst blizzard conditions forecast for parts of New England.
Governors in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia earlier declared states of emergency. Above-ground parts of New York City's subway service were suspended, and Metro-North commuter service to the suburbs shut down at noon. Train services to Boston and Albany were also suspended.
"Mother Nature is an unpredictable lady sometimes," the state's governor, Andrew Cuomo, said at a news conference. "She was unpredictable today." While New York City got less snow than expected, areas upstate were already buried in more than was forecast, he said, and up to 30 inches was still expected in central parts of the state.
Still, life was disrupted for many in New York City, although children and dogs found even a few inches of snow sufficient for play.
"It's a ghost town," Ali Naji, 33, said as he sat listening to Mexican pop music amid the emptiness of his usually bustling convenience store in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood.
In Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, Octavia Chavez-Richmond emerged from a subway station in the early afternoon after traveling from Providence, R.I. The young actress came to the city to star in a low-budget movie.
"Filming is tomorrow so they didn't officially tell me whether it's still happening," she said, "so I just came anyway and we'll see."
Airlines canceled more than 6,000 flights across the United States, according to tracking service FlightAware.com.
