The storm's timing on a weekend helped officials get a head start on clearing for Monday's rush hour.

"The crews almost got a free pass in terms of road cleanup on Sunday because they were largely alone on the highways," said Peter Judge, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. Massachusetts sent 4,200 trucks to sweep and sand the state's highways on Sunday and Monday after roughly 18 inches of snow hit the city of Boston.

But frozen tracks and damaged rail equipment made for a slow start to the week for thousands of commuters.

In Providence, hundreds of passengers crammed into the city's normally sleepy Amtrak station waiting for a Boston-bound train that was running two hours late.

"I thought two hours of shoveling was bad enough, but seeing a thigh-high snowdrift in the vestibule of the Amtrak train that drifted all the way into the compartment was the limit," said Clio Chafee, a graphic designer.

Before the storm, it had been a warm, dry winter along the East Coast. In Boston, snowfall was about 6 inches below normal and January was the sixth warmest January since 1892, said National Weather Service meteorologist Tracy McCormick.

Over the weekend, tens of thousands of homes lost power and many people who had gone away were stranded.

At least 26.9 inches (68.3 cm) of snow fell in New York's Central Park, topping a powerful blizzard on Dec. 26, 1947, that killed 77 people, according to the National Weather Service and city archives.

AIRPORTS OPEN

By Monday morning, New York's three main airports had all reopened.

Boston's Logan International Airport was open, but very busy as travelers, stuck elsewhere over the weekend, finally made their way home, spokesman Phil Orlandella said.

In New York, business was also moving more slowly as many people decided to make it a three-day weekend.

"Things are going to be very, very quiet today, because I'm sure half the portfolio managers in New York and in Boston are going to stay home," said Tom Schrader, managing director of US equity trading at Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets.

On Sunday, some 40,000 homes lost power in Washington and parts of Maryland and another 85,000 lost power in the Baltimore area, according to utility groups.

But Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island reported few outages, largely because the snow was light and fluffy.

With the sun shining brightly on Monday, people across the region took to the outdoors. Dozens of Massachusetts towns and cities, including Boston, canceled school, leaving children - and adults - free to enjoy the deep snow.

"I decided to go with the flow and so instead of shoveling I went skiing in the Arnold Arboretum," said J.B. Clancy, an architect in Boston.