APTOPIX Winter Weather Boston

Millions across the northeastern United States contended with treks to school and work as they dug out from a major storm that blanketed the region with snow, canceled flights, disrupted transit and downed power lines. Snow moved north Tuesday giving way to sunshine in parts of the region, but National Weather Service forecasters warned another storm originating in the Great Lakes is right around the corner. In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared that more 900,000 students in the nation’s largest public school system had a regular day. Mamdani invited kids to pelt him with snowballs over his decision.

Neighbors, government workers and a powerful railroad snow-clearing machine nicknamed “Darth Vader” have been digging out from a brutal storm that forecasters are calling the strongest in a decade. It dumped more than two feet of snow across much of the northeastern United States, and a record three feet in Warwick, Rhode Island. Thousands of flights were cancelled, and hundreds of thousands of people lost power. As roads begin to reopen and mass transportation comes back online, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is insisting that schools will reopen. Meanwhile forecasters warn that another big winter storm could be on its way.

Power failures and waist-high canyons of snow bedeviled parts of the Northeast in the aftermath of a massive storm that dumped piles on streets and sidewalks from Maryland Maine, even as fresh snowfall coated the region. Across the Northeast, the fallout from the storm persisted: In Rhode Island, where 3 feet (0.9 meters) of snow surpassed the record set in the Blizzard of 1978, people confronted a third straight day stuck at home as residential streets remained unplowed, trash pickup got postponed in some places and some schools went virtual. In Massachusetts, particularly in Cape Cod where nearly 145,000 were without power, utility crews worked 18-hour shifts to restore electricity.