People walk in the falling snow in Time Square in New York city Monday. Hu Haidan / China Daily

New York City subways, which carry 5.5 million riders daily, will run on a normal schedule until about 8 p.m., when service will be curtailed to allow subway cars and equipment to be stowed, Cuomo said at a news conference.

New York City public schools, which serve more than 1 million students, will be closed on Tuesday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said. Scores of other schools districts were shutting early on Monday.

Two major commuter railroads, Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road, will run normally until 11 p.m., Cuomo said.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie declared a state of emergency, and sent all but the most essential government workers home on Monday afternoon, telling them not to return until Wednesday at the earliest. New Jersey Transit commuter trains will stop running for at least one day, beginning at 10 p.m. on Monday, he said.

"Please stay home," Christie told residents.

The governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut told residents to expect driving bans later tonight and all day tomorrow. They warned that hundreds of thousands of people could lose power, possibly for days.

"We are anticipating an historic, top-five storm, based on the snowfall," Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker told reporters on Monday. The Boston-area transit system will be shut on Tuesday, he said. He warned that coastal parts of the state will likely suffer flooding.

At Boston's Logan International Airport, the last passenger flight was to leave around 7 p.m. EST (midnight GMT) and airlines planned to remove all planes by the day's end.

President Barack Obama, who is traveling in New Delhi, India, was briefed on the coming storm earlier on Monday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.