Blinding snow with near-hurricane force winds pummeled the eastern United States on Saturday, triggering severe weather warnings, transportation chaos, and power outages across a 70-million-person region.

With multiple blizzard warnings in effect, cities such as New York and Boston bore the brunt of the storm, which the National Weather Service (NWS) confirmed Saturday morning had intensified into a "bomb cyclone" – defined by the explosive power of rapid drops in atmospheric pressure.

Coastal areas were expected to get more than a foot (30 centimeters) of snow by the end of the day, and up to three feet in parts of Massachusetts, where nearly 117,000 homes were already without power.

Cold weather warnings were issued as far south as Florida, where the National Weather Service warned of "scattered to isolated falling iguanas from trees" as temperatures plummeted, temporarily paralyzing the large lizards, which can weigh up to 20 pounds (nine kilograms).

Residents across the eastern seaboard were urged to stay home and avoid any unnecessary travel during the whiteout conditions. A woman was found dead in her car by a snowplow operator on Long Island, according to officials.

On the island north of Manhattan, ten inches (25 centimeters) of snow had already fallen and regional train lines were partially shut down to clear ice from the tracks.

Salt trucks and snow machines crawled through the streets of New York City on Saturday, where residents awoke to more than four inches of snow.

On the ground in the Bronx. It’s a good day to stay home if you don’t have to go out! pic.twitter.com/mFEqJpQpq0

— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) January 29, 2022

New York and its neighboring state, New Jersey, have declared a state of emergency. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has asked residents of the state to avoid unnecessary travel.

Mayor Michelle Wu of Boston declared a snow emergency. "It's going to get quite ugly out there," she said from City Hall in an early-morning television interview.

"This is going to be a historic storm." The blizzard follows a similar winter storm that blanketed a swath of Eastern North America – from Georgia to Canada – just two weeks ago, knocking out power to thousands of homes and disrupting thousands of flights.

Good morning, Boston! I took a snowy 6AM drive with Mike Brohel from @BostonPWD today to check in on our storm prep. Come along with us: pic.twitter.com/iTCvt1tQdV

— Mayor Michelle Wu 吳弭 (@MayorWu) January 29, 2022

According to flight tracker FlightAware, more than 3,500 flights within, into, or out of the United States were canceled on Saturday, and 885 flights have already been canceled for Sunday.