A giant winter storm has let loose a second wave of heavy snowfall on the US north-east, as hundreds of thousands of people remain helpless in the states in its southern wake, reports BBC.
About 550,000 homes and businesses are still in the dark and almost 1,300 Friday flights are cancelled.
The storm has claimed at least 22 lives, including that of a pregnant woman struck by a snowplough. It is the latest foul weather to pummel the winter-weary eastern US.
By early this month, Washington DC, Detroit, Boston, Chicago, New York and St Louis had recorded two to three times as much snow as normal by this time in the winter season.
This storm system has already dumped as much as 15in of snow in the Washington DC region and 8in around New York City by Thursday.
Up to another foot is forecast in a second snowfall that began on Thursday evening continued through to Friday morning, with the heaviest precipitation in the US states of Connecticut and Massachusetts.
But the National Weather Service predicted the weather would ease by the weekend.
"Heavy snow will continue tonight... but will begin to taper off from south to north through the morning hours on Friday," the official forecaster said.
The snow-covered streets in the nation's capital were largely deserted on Thursday, after the federal government closed its Washington-area offices to spare its widely dispersed workforce the trouble and danger of the drive to work.
On Friday, Washington started work two hours behind the ordinary schedule, the Office of Personnel Management said. More than 6,500 US flights were cancelled on Thursday, according to airline-tracking website FlightAware.com.
In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio was criticised for keeping schools open on Thursday despite the snow piling on the ground.