The snow was blamed for at least three traffic deaths, and caused lengthy airport delays.
Forecasters said the system threatened to deliver an even heavier blow over the weekend, with up to 18 inches of snow forecast in parts of New England.
"We're all set," said Richard Christiano of Lexington, Mass. "I just bought 100 pounds of ice melt and we took out our snow shovels last night. We'll be getting a good night's sleep and getting ready for some shoveling."
The National Weather Service (news - web sites) said the complex storm system brought in snow and sleet, changing to rain in some places as temperatures warmed. Along the mid-Atlantic coast, hit by the first round early Friday, a second wintry punch was expected to strike late in the day.
"We're looking at a classic coastal storm, a nor'easter, if you will, that should move in around midnight and intensify as it moves up the Northeast corridor," said meteorologist Barbara Watson.
"The further north you go, the more accumulation you'll get, so that in parts of Maine, you could be measuring it in feet," she said.
Forecasters in Massachusetts predicted up to 18 inches of snow through Sunday. Near-blizzard conditions were in the offing for parts of Maine and New Hampshire. In New Jersey, up to 14 inches of snow was forecast.
About 200 flights were canceled Friday at New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport, and travelers were told to expect delays of up to three hours. At New York's La Guardia airport, about 100 flights had been canceled by Friday evening, and other flights were delayed up to two hours. No delays were reported at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
There was too much snow even for Santa Claus in Frederick, Md., where a 6-inch accumulation and forecasts for more prompted a week's postponement of the downtown Kris Kringle Parade.
In New Jersey, a team of ice carvers will wait a week to carve "Santa's Holiday Village" out of a ton of ice, after an outdoor festival was postponed because of the weather.
The storm had already brought a mixture of ice, freezing rain, sleet and snow in mountain regions of North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia on Thursday.
Two people were killed in Virginia — a 23-year-old man died Thursday in an accident on a slick road, and on Friday a 41-year-old man was killed when his pickup truck ran off a snow-covered road, struck a tree and overturned.
In Pennsylvania, a school bus lost control on a slippery road and crashed into a van, killing the van's 74-year-old driver. None of the three dozen children on the bus was injured.
Philadelphia drivers endured a sloppy rush-hour crawl Friday morning and braced for more snow on Saturday. The combination of snow, sleet and rain caused so many fender-benders in the city that a radio traffic reporter called it "a $500 deductible day."
For New York City, the temperature hit the freezing point as the first flakes descended on the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.
Tana and Howard Graham, visiting the city from Jackson, Miss., said they hadn't experienced any serious snow for a half-dozen years.
"We're loving it," Tana Graham said. "It's putting us in the Christmas spirit."
Diana Maria Gilly, 23 months, got her first glimpse of snow as she left Manhattan's Ritz-Carlton hotel in her stroller.
"Mommy, what are those things falling from the sky?" asked Diana, visiting from London with her mother.
Ahead of the storm, many schools sent students home early and grocery and hardware stores filled with shoppers.
By noon Friday, the Home Depot in Glastonbury, Conn., had sold most of its snow blowers and employees were busy restocking shelves with shovels and bags of salt.
"You just don't know," said Roxanne Cone of Glastonbury as she bought milk, bread and juice at a grocery store. "I want to have enough stuff in the house in case I'm stuck there for a few days. I don't want to have to leave."
Massachusetts dodged a possible idling of its snow plows Friday when the state reached a tentative agreement with representatives for private plow contractors. The contractors' group had voted to work this weekend only if they were not required to carry global positioning phones demanded by the Massachusetts Highway Department. They agreed to use the phones on a trial basis.
The storm dumped as much as 8 inches of snow and sleet in western Virginia, causing havoc on highways and forcing schools to close.
"We've got a mess here," said Sgt. Tom Foster, a state police spokesman in Salem, Va.
The same was true in West Virginia, where ice, freezing rain, sleet and snow made travel difficult across much of the state Friday. Up to 14 inches of snow was forecast in the state's eastern mountains.
Three to 5 inches of snow fell across North Carolina's western mountains Thursday, where schools closed from Asheville to the Tennessee line.
To the West, wind gusting to 80 mph Thursday toppled trees and cut power to more than 250,000 customers in western Washington state. One person was seriously injured when a tree fell on a car.
