New York:
Sunshine and deep piles of sparkling snow blanketed the Northeast on Monday morning, but for frustrated commuters and holiday travelers struck by the winter's first ferocious storm, the beauty was short-lived.
Gusting winds kicked up formidable snowdrifts further crippling an entire New York metropolitan region trying to dig out, shutting down the three major airports, stopping commuter trains and some subway lines -- even stranding some passengers overnight -- and causing nightmare delays without much of a sense of when the conditions would improve.
About two feet of snow fell across the New York area through the overnight hours, making even the easiest of commutes -- for those still having to report to work -- a Himalayan trek.
The massive winds damaged switches for train lines, drifted snow perilously deep on the tracks and even caused plow trucks to get stuck.
Transit officials said that there was no service along the entire Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road commuter rail networks as of 11:30 a.m. All New Jersey Transit trains were operating with delays of up to 30 minutes, but New Jersey Transit bus service remains entirely suspended. The Staten Island Railway is also suspended.
Amtrak trains, delayed throughout the morning after a total shutdown on the New York to Boston route on Sunday night, were beginning to move again.
But Penn Station on Monday morning was still overrun with bedraggled passengers, some of whom slept overnight in the waiting room and even on a couple of trains. Two L.I.R.R. trains on tracks 18 and 19 turned into a makeshift hotel (minus the pillows), passengers said, as officials kept the trains open all night with lights and heat.
"The whole thing was great," said Dan Cassone, 33, who could not return to Bellmore, L.I., with his friend Christine Duffy, 29. "We kind of saw it as an adventure."
But once dawn came, travel aboveground turned into adventures of an especially treacherous kind. New York City Transit received reports of more than 400 stuck buses overnight and into the early morning. Express routes are making all local stops. "You can assume that everything is running with delays," said Charles Seaton, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman.
Although New York City Transit takes extensive measures to prevent service disruptions in a snowstorm, "we were overwhelmed," Mr. Seaton said. Blowing snow drifts of up to four feet high contributed to equipment problems and prevented crews from accessing some tracks and switches.
Another problem on Monday morning was transportation for train operators, themselves. Many were having trouble getting to work, and Mr. Seaton said that a dearth of workers had contributed to the decision to shut down the entire B line.
Morning commuters faced the daunting prospect of cutting fresh tracks in over a foot of snow along roads and sidewalks that looked more like Colorado than the urban north.
The Federal Aviation Administration said that the three New York airports would remain closed indefinitely, a rare shutdown that sent ripple effects across the country and even overseas, with delays likely to last through the remainder of the week. The Philadelphia and Boston airports were open, according to the F.A.A.
A total of 20 inches covered Central Park, according to the National Weather Service. The deepest snow was recorded in Elizabeth, N.J., where 31 inches fell. The storm had largely moved on from New York City by sunrise, heading northeast out past Long Island and up over Nantucket, gradually weakening, the weather service said.
But for all its bluster and powder, the monster storm was technically a blizzard only outside of Manhattan. The winds in Central Park only topped out at 36 miles but were not sustained over a period of three consecutive hours, nor was the visibility under a quarter of a mile for that period -- both requirements to qualify as a blizzard.
"We didn't quite make the criteria in Central Park," said Matt Scalora, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Central Park. "But we did meet the criteria at J.F.K. Airport and La Guardia," he added.
The winds topped out at 59 miles an hour at around 8 p.m. on Sunday night at John F. Kennedy International Airport and 55 miles an hour at La Guardia Airport.
On Sunday evening, Bayville, in Nassau County registered the highest wind gust of the area -- 68 miles an hour -- and winds reached 60 miles or higher across Connecticut and New Jersey as well. "Last year with the winter storms, we didn't have winds as high across so many areas," Mr. Scalora said. "It's definitely rare."
Throughout the morning winds were gusting up to 4o miles per hour in Midtown Manhattan, throwing snow from the ground into the faces of harried pedestrians.
The storm was just in time to disrupt the plans of thousands of people trying to get home after the holiday, return unwanted gifts or take advantage of post-holiday sales. Public schools had not been scheduled to be in session, much to the dismay of many children in the Northeast.
The storm was blamed for at least one death, after a driver slammed into a utility pole in Mount Olive Township, N.J., on Sunday evening, according to the police there.
It also provided New Yorkers a harrowing subway tale to think about ahead of their morning commute. Riders who boarded an A train in Queens at around 1 a.m. were stranded for more than six hours when their train stopped moving. While passengers were free to leave the subway system, the station is not located near other transit options. "Once you get off the train there's basically no place else to go," Mr. Seaton said. At 7:52 the ordeal came to an end, though perhaps not an entirely happy one for the passengers. A rescue train finally reached the Aqueduct station and towed the stricken train to the Rockaways terminal.
The weather service called it the biggest storm in the region since last February, when record snowfalls paralyzed the mid-Atlantic states but largely spared New York City. The last blizzard to hit Central Park was on Feb. 12, 2006, when the 24-hour record for Central Park, 26.9 inches, was set.
On Monday, revelers took to the park for a day of sledding and snow-frolicking, while post-Christmas shoppers found a handful of stores closed or opening late.
"It's quite a challenge to maintain the parking lots completely clear of snow," said Lorenzo Lopez, a spokesman for Walmart, which was forced to close 20 of its East coast stores on Sunday. Seven were closed on Monday. In Manhattan, the Century 21 department store delayed its opening by several hours.
More than 2,000 flights were canceled on Sunday by major airlines on the Eastern Seaboard, 1,444 of them at Kennedy International and La Guardia Airports in New York and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. Spillback cancellations affected hundreds of other flights from Chicago and Atlanta, and even from London and Paris.
One terminal at Kennedy was transformed into a campsite of refugees on Sunday. Entire families rested on stacks of luggage, slept on the floor in sleeping bags, watched movies on laptops and ate lunches on suitcases. People streamed to information booths, but it was hopeless: Boards listed nearly all flights as canceled.
Amid the whiteout conditions outside, some homes went dark on Sunday night. Consolidated Edison reported more than 560 power outages in New York City, the majority in Queens, and electricity was not expected to be restored until Monday evening. Nearly 10,400 customers on Long Island lost service from the Long Island Power Authority, and more than 1,500 people were without power in New Jersey. About 4,900 lost electricity in Connecticut, mostly along the coast.