Two people died and one was critically injured after a tree fell on a Maryland road during the storm.
Meanwhile, a man was found buried under snow in Deer Park, New York, on Monday. Suffolk County police said they couldn’t immediately connect the discovery to Monday's storm.
New York City made it a priority to get homeless people into shelters as snow fell and temperatures plummeted, Mamdani said.
"We want to make sure we have every single option available so we can get New Yorkers off the streets," the mayor told reporters Tuesday afternoon. "And as of now, I'm thankful to report that there are no reported deaths outside or in public areas as a result of this."
Roads reopened and mass transportation returned to normal service in some cities as power gradually returned to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware and Rhode Island.
There were 365,000 power outages reported in the Garden State during this storm, and just 35,000 customers remained in the dark by late Tuesday morning, Sherrill said.
Travel bans in Rhode Island and Massachusetts were lifted at noon, but officials still urged residents to stay home if possible so that heavy machinery could have space to clear snow.
"This is not a quick cleanup. Recovery will take time, patience, and coordination," said Marc Pappas, director of the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency. "Snow removal at this scale is a massive, massive operation."
The winter wonderland brought some fun in New York City, with snowmen popping up and children sledding down embankments.
But others took advantage of the winter weather to hurl snowballs at New York police officers, in a viral video that caught the attention and ire of the mayor.
He told the snowball throwers to aim at him and leave police alone to do their jobs.
"Officers have been on the front line of helping our city respond to this blizzard. They have been keeping New Yorkers safe," the mayor said.
"The only person in our city's workforce who deserves to be treated with a snowball is me."
Mamdani, though, stopped short of calling the snowball hurling a criminal act.
Multiple times Mamdani was asked if anyone should be charged — and to each query, he said the footage looked like a "snowball fight" to him.
New York City public schools were closed Monday but reopened Tuesday, in a City Hall move that received some backlash from those who said it was unfeasible, given the snow still piled up on city sidewalks.
Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella said schools should remain closed, while Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, described the situation as “a big mess.”
“There’s going to be low attendance of students. You’re going to have low attendance of staff because people don’t know if they can travel, if they can get to schools,” he said.
The tentative attendance at New York public schools on Tuesday was 63.3% Chancellor Kamar Samuels said.
Philadelphia switched to online learning Monday and Tuesday. Districts on Long Island and elsewhere in the New York suburbs called off school again Tuesday.
Another storm is coming
The National Weather Service said it’s tracking another storm that could bring more snow to the region later this week.
Good news — the areas just hard hit by the blizzard will only see light amounts of snow, with a dusting to 3 inches possible.
While the new storm is not expected to be as strong, even a few extra inches of snow on top of hard-hit areas could make cleanup more difficult, said Frank Pereira, meteorologist for the weather service in College Park, Maryland.
“Any additional snow at this point is probably not going to be welcome,” he said.
The clipper system will move from the Upper Midwest into the Northeast over the next 24 hours. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan will see several inches of snow, as will the Tug Hill Plateau and parts of the Appalachians.
Another system Thursday will bring some rain in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic, and a mixture of rain and snow to the Northeast. No additional snowfall accumulation is expected with this system.
The weather service referred to Monday’s storm as a “classic bomb cyclone/nor’easter off the Northeast coast.” A bomb cyclone happens when a storm’s pressure falls by a certain amount within a 24-hour period, occurring mainly in the fall and winter when frigid Arctic air can reach the south and clash with warmer temperatures.
At least 20 locations officially hit blizzard criteria Monday, and 39 locations recorded more than 30 inches of snow.
Snow affects airport operations
More than 2,000 flights in and out of the United States were canceled Tuesday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Most of the cancellations involved airports in New York, New Jersey and Boston.
Rhode Island’s T.F. Green International Airport paused its airport operations Monday as it dealt with nearly 38 inches of snow, according to the weather service, breaking a record set in 1978.
Central Park in New York City recorded 19 inches of snow — the ninth largest storm on record.
Warwick, Rhode Island, exceeded 3 feet, topping the nation so far. The highest wind gust of 83 mph was recorded in Nantucket, with hurricane-force gusts seen all over Cape Cod.
New York, Philadelphia and other cities, as well as several states, declared emergencies.
