New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo imposed a ban travel on all local and state roads across the city of 8.4 million residents, Long Island and crossings west to New Jersey starting at 2:30 p.m. local time (1930 UTC).

　　All public transportation was suspended as Broadway canceled performances, museums closed and shops were shuttered.

　　NYC Bans Travel as Snowstorm Hits City

　　Storm Jonas had a serious impact on the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions Saturday afternoon with nearly 60 centimeters of snow blanketing the Washington metropolitan area — with another eight hours or so of snow forecast.

　　Up to 85 million people were in the storm's path, and hundreds of thousands were without power while thousands more were stranded after the storm paralyzed street, rail and airline traffic along the U.S. East Coast.

　　The storm even stymied the travel plans of one of the most powerful Americans. Defense Secretary Ash Carter was headed home from a five-day trip to Paris and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, when his flight had to be rerouted. His high-tech aircraft — known as the Doomsday Plane — wasn't able to land at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. Carter was rerouted to Tampa, Florida, where he will wait until he is able to fly into the nation's capital.

　　With snow forecast to continue until the early hours of Sunday, weather services predicted the storm could bring snowfall to rival the biggest blizzards on record. Residents were warned to stay indoors as winds intensified to almost 50 miles per hour (above 80 kph), creating near whiteout conditions and making travel even more hazardous.

　　Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake urged residents to stay indoors, saying roads were very dangerous. She told cnn that the steady snow plus heavy winds were a problem.

　　Flooding on Jersey shore

　　High tides washed through the streets of Jersey Shore towns, mixing with snow and pooling in driveways Saturday, though a bigger concern was snowfall at a rate of 2? inches (7 centimeters) an hour in some places and very low visibility, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said.

　　Some southern areas of the state saw significant flooding. Christie said 90,000 power outages had been reported, but there were shelters for people affected. He urged residents to say inside.

　　Washington relatively spared

　　The worst appeared to be over for Washington, although moderate snow was expected to keep falling until late Saturday, with accumulations of 22.8 inches (58 centimeters) recorded in Poolesville, Maryland, north of the nation's capital.

　　States of emergency

　　At least nine people have already died from Georgia to New England, with six reported dead in car crashes due to icy roads in North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee. States of emergency were declared in at least 10 states. In Kentucky, authorities opened emergency shelters along a major interstate highway, where motorists had been stranded for at least 10 hours.

　　Jonas could be one of Washington’s 10 worst storms in recorded history, according to forecasters. Ahead of the storm, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a state of emergency and closed local schools Friday. "This has life-and-death implications, and all the residents of the District of Columbia should treat it that way," said Bowser.

　　Federal government offices in the city shut down. Authorities even took the rare step of closing the entire D.C. Metro public transit system.