BOSTON — Heavy Snow hit the United States Tuesday, and a late-season Storm resulted in muddy morning drives to the Northeast and left Californians digging, and in some cases, simply waiting for help after another storm.

Hundreds of schools in southern New England have either closed for the day or delayed reopening due to the heaviest snowfall to hit a mild winter overnight. By sunrise, some communities were covered with 7 or 8 inches of snow.

“So far we haven’t had a winter,” said Harry Craven, owner of Highland True Value hardware and bike shop in Holyoke, Massachusetts. “But in the last couple of days people have been coming to us to melt the ice and shovels, and this morning some people were looking for parts to repair snowplows. It wasn’t a blockbuster hurricane by our standards, but I’m happy with it.”

Most flight cancellations or delays have been concentrated in the northeast. More than 470 flights had been canceled in the US and more than 900 delayed by noon, according to FlightAware.com.

A winter storm warning has swept parts of the northeast, including Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island, with heavy snow forecast until Tuesday evening.

Snow made morning highway commuting in the Boston area difficult, and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority reported power losses that affected signals at several lines and stations. Even after power was restored, residual delays were expected, the MBTA tweeted.

A tractor-trailer accident on Interstate 91 in Connecticut resulted in minor injuries.

“I strongly recommend that everyone in Connecticut stay off the roads Tuesday morning unless absolutely necessary,” Gov. Ned Lamont said in a statement. Three special elections to the Connecticut House of Representatives proceeded as scheduled.

Between two and five inches of snow fell depending on the area of ​​New York. Parts of Manhattan were almost non-existent, and instead of being stuck on the busy streets and sidewalks, it turned into mush during the morning commute. Enough snow fell in the Bronx and Brooklyn that residents had to shake off cars and clean sidewalks.

The Albany, New York area received less snow than expected – between 2 and 5 inches – but enough to close schools.

Michigan has once again entered the battle with ice after a new storm that hit on Monday left thousands of customers without power in the central part of the state. To the southeast, in the Detroit area, some consumers are still short of electricity for the sixth day since the previous ice storm.

On the other side of the country, California has reopened.

San Bernardino County, east of Los Angeles, declared a state of emergency over the latest snowfall after many mountain dwellers were locked in their homes over the weekend. According to KTLA-TV, due to heavy snowfall, hundreds of motorists were on a hill.

A television station reported that dozens of elementary students were stuck at a science camp in Crestline for almost a week, but buses escorted by state highway patrol eventually evacuated them. The county fire department used “specialized snowmobiles” to transport people in need of critical medical attention.

The new series of storms came even as parts of California were still digging out of last week’s powerful storm, which added to the massive snowpack left by the “atmospheric river” siege in December and January.

A cold weather warning was issued in the valleys and mountainous regions north of Los Angeles as overnight temperatures were expected to drop below freezing for most of the week. The shelters were open to residents without access to heat.

While the mountainous regions around Los Angeles were being excavated, it was raining in the valleys of California, near the Pacific coast. Storms were expected to continue moving across the state through the end of Wednesday. Blizzard warnings were in effect for the Sierra Nevada region of California and Nevada.

An avalanche warning has been issued for remote areas around Lake Tahoe, where up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) of snow is expected over the next two days at higher elevations and hurricane-force winds can create waves of up to 5 feet (1.5 meters). high above the lake, the National Weather Service said.

State offices in northern Nevada and the Nevada Legislature in Carson City closed.

The north side of Interstate 5, the West Coast’s main north–south highway, was closed due to bad weather and was littered with disabled vehicles about 90 miles (145 km) south of the Oregon line. Interstate 80 was closed due to a snowstorm.

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Associated Press journalists Dave Collins of Connecticut and Julie Walker of New York contributed to this report, along with other AP journalists around the country.

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