A record-breaking blizzard, the first one to hit the New York City area in a decade, brought the entire northeast of the United States to a halt on Monday. Now, everyone is left to dig out — and some even have to go to school.

Central Park recorded 19.7 inches of snow as of Monday afternoon, making it the ninth-biggest snowfall it has seen in recorded history. The Long Island town of Islip, in Suffolk County, had the highest total seen across the tri-state, with 31 inches of snow. East Islip and Patchogue reported 30 inches as well. Holbrook and Babylon both got 29 or more inches.

In New Jersey, two spots in Bergen County hit 30 inches: Lyndhurst, which got 30.7 inches, and Carlstadt, which got half an inch less than that. Leonia came close with 29.7, along with Bogota at 29.5. Newark Airport got 27.2 inches. See full list of totals here.

Christa Prince and two others were out in Brooklyn on Monday afternoon with shovels and an electric snowblower.

“We’re just making a path for this car,” Prince said. “It’s not our car but you know, we’re just doing our neighbor a kind deed.”

The highest winds reported as part of the storm were from Montauk Point in Suffolk County of Long Island, where gusts peaked at 84 mph. Winds in Stony Brook hit 74 mph, while half a dozen other spots on Long Island all had wind speeds of more than 60 mph.

While Suffolk County appeared to have faced the most powerful winds, other areas also dealt with strong gusts. Winds in the Kew Gardens Hills neighborhood of Queens reached 64 mph, while Robert Moses State Park had gusts of 65 mph. JFK Airport had 62 mph winds, and LaGuardia reached 52 mph. Staten Island had winds up to 58 mph. The highest winds in midtown Manhattan were reported at 48 mph.

All that wind and snow made for a mess on the roads, and much of the area was still plowing and shoveling out going into Tuesday. Many school districts on Long Island and elsewhere in the New York suburbs canceled school again Tuesday — but not NYC.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said class would be back in person, though the decision raised questions about how feasible it would be with snow still piled along sidewalks, if not still in the streets.

Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella said school should remain closed, while Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, described the situation as “a big mess.”

“There’s going to be low attendance of students. You’re going to have low attendance of staff because people don’t know if they can travel, if they can get to schools,” he said.

Spokespersons for Mamdani didn’t respond to an email seeking comment but his schools chief defended the decision on social media.

Chancellor Kamar Samuels said the district “couldn’t be 100% certain” that every student would have access to the devices they needed for remote learning, despite school officials’ “best efforts” to distribute them ahead of the storm.

“We are confident in our decision to reopen,” he wrote on X. “Our schools and city are ready to welcome students and staff back tomorrow.”

As for adults getting back to work on Tuesday, the MTA said subway lines were mostly operational after earlier delays, with the exception of the hard-hit borough of Staten Island, where rail service remained suspended. Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North and NJ Transit were expected to resume limited service ahead of the Tuesday morning commute. See the latest on transit updates here.

As the snow moved northward and away from the tri-state, Storm Team 4 says there could be more snow on the way later this week. But this one won’t be nearly to the same magnitude.

The next round of light snow will roll through during Wednesday morning’s commute, but it will be quick, and totals will be light. While the new storm is not expected to be as strong, even a few extra inches of snow on top of hard-hit areas could make cleanup more difficult. There is also one more chance of any icy mix Thursday.

As for Tuesday, the weather will be calmer and gentler — but temperatures struggle to get to the freezing mark in the afternoon, so very little melting can be expected.

Anthony Izaguirre, Clair Rush, Julie Walker and Adam Geller of The Associated Press contributed to this report.