A powerful winter storm slammed the US East Coast on Monday, dumping record snowfall and disrupting life for millions. Thousands of flights were canceled as the system moved up the coastline.
According to the National Weather Service, parts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts received close to 37 inches of snow. New York City’s Central Park recorded more than 19 inches.
Weather alerts were issued from North Carolina all the way to northern Maine, with warnings extending into parts of eastern Canada.
The storm also knocked out power to more than 600,000 properties along the East Coast. The Boston Globe said it would not publish a print edition for the first time in its 153-year history because of the severe weather.
Travel across much of the region ground to a halt, with several states and cities imposing temporary travel bans at the height of the storm.
READ: Brutal cold snaps US energy output, sends power prices swinging (
The system, described as a nor’easter, is expected to move off the US coast on Tuesday and track toward eastern Canada. The National Weather Service said strong winds are likely to continue even after the snow tapers off.
Forecasters had projected snowfall totals of one to two feet along parts of the northeastern coastline.
Among the hardest hit was Rhode Island, the smallest state in the country, which appears to have borne the brunt of the snowfall. Local reports say this was the most severe snowstorm in the state’s recorded history.
In Providence, crews measured about 36 inches of snow. That easily surpassed the previous single-storm record of 28.6 inches set in February 1978, setting a new benchmark for winter extremes in the state.
“It completely smashed it,” Candice Hrencecin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boston, told The New York Times. “We were just as shocked as everyone else.”
As conditions worsened, officials in Rhode Island and neighboring Connecticut announced bans on non-essential travel. Later, Maura Healey followed with a similar order in Massachusetts.
“White-out conditions are making travel extremely dangerous,” she said in a post online. “If you get stuck, help will have a hard time reaching you… I strongly urge everyone to stay off the roads no matter where you live.”
A white-out occurs when heavy, wind-driven snow reduces visibility to near zero, making even short trips risky.
In Massachusetts, nearly 300,000 customers were in the dark at the height of the storm, according to tracking site PowerOutage.us. Barnstable County was hit especially hard, with roughly 85 percent of customers losing electricity. The county covers all of Cape Cod.
The Boston Globe said the blizzard forced it to halt its print edition for the first time in more than a century and a half. The paper noted it had managed to publish through past crises, including severe weather, technical problems and even a global pandemic.
READ: US airlines warn of delays, issue travel waivers amid winter storms (January 23, 2026)
This time, more than two feet of snow kept press workers from reaching the printing facility, making distribution impossible. Subscribers are expected to receive both Tuesday and Wednesday editions together on Wednesday.
In New York City, a temporary travel ban brought much of the city’s activity to a pause before it was lifted at noon local time. Roads, highways and bridges were shut down as the storm peaked. Police are also reviewing video that appears to show officers being hit with snowballs in Washington Square Park.
Air travel across the country was thrown into disarray. Data from flight tracking service FlightAware showed more than 5,700 cancellations within, into or out of the United States on Monday alone.
Nearly all outbound flights from LaGuardia Airport were scrapped, along with the vast majority from John F. Kennedy International Airport. Both airports, which together typically handle hundreds of thousands of passengers a day, recorded close to 19 inches of snowfall.
Airports in Boston, Newark and Philadelphia also reported widespread cancellations. By early Tuesday, more than 2,000 additional flights across the US had already been called off, with Boston, Newark and LaGuardia among the hardest hit.