• Most of New York City was forecast to receive five to eight inches of snowfall, although Queens, and neighboring Nassau County, could get up to 10 inches, forecasters said. Schools are closed, but the trains are running. New York Today is covering the storm live. Read the latest updates here.
• The storm also shut down schools in Baltimore; Boston; Newark; Philadelphia; Providence, R.I.; Virginia Beach; and Washington, among other places. Classes were also canceled in areas in the South that had seen snowfall and anticipated days of bitter cold. Some districts in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina closed schools for Thursday.
• The storm’s race up the East Coast — through some of the busiest air traffic corridors in the country — prompted airlines to cancel nearly 3,000 flights by early Thursday morning, according to FlightAware, an aviation tracking website. Nationwide, airlines have already scratched plans for more than 150 flights on Friday.
• Tens of thousands of customers, mostly in Virginia, were without power on Thursday morning, and even in places where electricity was mostly flowing, officials feared the consequences of frigid temperatures that will linger for days.
• With heating units in homes and commercial buildings running furiously to fend off the deep freeze, power companies have warned of possible fuel shortages to come. Read more here.
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Northeastern states are facing a major blow.
The Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, with heavy snowfall and wind chills as low as minus 25 degrees expected.
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Roads remained open in New York, but state officials imposed speed restrictions on some crossings and banned trucks on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge because of high winds.
Mr. Cuomo said road conditions on Long Island were deteriorating and some cars had been stranded on the Long Island Expressway overnight, creating a “significant issue of public safety.”
On Wednesday, Kathryn Garcia, the commissioner of the Department of Sanitation in New York City, encouraged New Yorkers to avoid driving and use mass transit instead.
Chilly gusts of up to 50 miles per hour are likely to whip eastern Long Island and southeastern Connecticut starting late Thursday morning, with the potential for downed tree limbs and scattered power failures, the National Weather Service said.
Amtrak was operating a reduced schedule on its Acela and Northeast Regional services between Washington and New York. The rail service also said it had canceled trains between Washington and Newport News, Va., and had modified its schedule between Springfield, Mass., and New Haven.
With thousands of flights canceled, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, Southwest and United were among the major carriers that said passengers could change certain travel plans without penalties.
In the Washington area, the federal government delayed opening offices on Thursday morning as slush and slick roads subsumed the capital.
The Office of Personnel Management, essentially the federal government’s human resources department, said that nonemergency workers could report two hours late, work remotely, or take an unscheduled leave.
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The National Weather Service predicted a Thursday high of 28 degrees for Washington, with winds gusting to 40 m.p.h. Temperatures are not expected to reach the 40s — maybe — until Monday.
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