HK/Washington - Snow, sleet and icy winds across Asia caused deaths, flight cancellations and chaos over the weekend as areas used to basking in balmier climates struggled with record-low temperatures.
The icy streets of the US capital remained largely deserted Monday on the first work day after a mammoth blizzard smothered the East Coast, with schools and the federal government closed as people dug their cars and doorways out from mountains of snow.
The record-breaking storm that hit the East Coast over the weekend is likely to cost businesses and residents about $2.5 billion to $3 billion, according to estimates.
That estimate comes from Moody's Analytics, which estimates most of the cost of the storm is from businesses that lost sales and employees that lost wages when they could not get to work. Those losses were partly offset by people who earned extra wages due to the storm, such as workers who got overtime for ploughing roads and parking lots.
Also, this storm's damage to property and infrastructure was limited, according to AIR Worldwide, which comes up with estimates for insured losses, although some flooding was reported, particularly along the New Jersey shore.
This weekend's $3 billion loss estimate is much less compared to the $26 billion in lost business and wages caused by Superstorm Sandy in 2012, according to Moody's Analytics. And Sandy caused an additional $45 billion in physical damage.
In Bangkok, a city that rarely sees the thermometer dip below 20-25 degrees Celsius (68-77 Fahrenheit), temperatures dropped to around 16 degrees late Sunday.
It left Bangkokians, whose normal attire generally includes flip-flops and shorts, digging through their closets for jackets and jumpers.
Thip Panyangam, a 51-year-old motorcycle taxi driver in Bangkok, welcomed the unusual drop in temperature.
He told AFP: "Whoa! The weather is superb. It's been many years since I've experienced this cold. I feel happy, refreshed and relaxed. When it gets too hot, I get a headache."
In Japan five people died and more than 100 were injured Sunday as record-breaking heavy snowfall and low temperatures hit the country's western and central regions and rare snow fell in subtropical areas, officials and local media said.
The small subtropical island of Amami observed snow for the first time since 1901, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
In China, 24 weather stations around the country recorded all-time low temperatures between Friday and Sunday. At Eergu'Na in Inner Mongolia, the temperature on Saturday hit a record low of -46.8 degrees.
The southern city of Guangzhou saw rare sleet, the first in 60 years, in its downtown area, the provincial meteorological station announced on Sunday.
In Hong Kong, primary schools and kindergartens were closed Monday after temperatures plunged to a 60-year low.
A 100-kilometre ultra-marathon race was abandoned as competitors crossing the city's tallest peak, Tai Mo Shan, slipped on icy slopes buffeted by freezing winds.
The peak became the scene of "carnage", as one race official described it, as hundreds of curious "frost-chasing" citizens became stranded, with dozens stricken with hypothermia and hapless firemen called in to rescue them filmed slipping and sliding on the icy roads.
Close to 90,000 people were stranded on the South Korean resort island of Jeju on Monday after the biggest snowfall in three decades shut the airport for the third straight day.
Taipei registered a low of 4 degrees over the weekend, the coldest in 44 years, with the Taiwan media reporting 90 deaths due to the cold weather, and rare snowfall drawing enthusiastic crowds to Yangmingshan National Park.
In Vietnam, temperatures in Hanoi dropped to six degrees at night over the weekend, which state-run media said was the coldest weather the country has experienced for two decades.
Mountainous areas in the country's north, including the popular tourist town of Sapa, experienced light snow. Some primary schools were closed in the capital Monday, officials said.
Washington's subway and bus network, closed all weekend, resumed service but on a very limited basis as crews worked to clear the streets. For a day, trains ran for free.
Under a sunny sky, the normally bustling avenues around the White House and the K St. corridor that is home to the city's powerful lobbyists were all but empty.
The few people out and about trudged through slush and ice and picked their way through sometimes chest-high drifts of snow piled up by plow trucks. Most restaurants, office buildings and stores remained closed.
"From my estimation we got more snow than I have ever seen in Washington, D.C.," Mayor Muriel Bowser told CNN. "We are working hard to dig out all of our residential streets."
Limited flight operations resumed Monday from Washington's Reagan National and Dulles International airports on Monday, a day after officials battled in New York to get some aircraft off the ground.
More than 22 inches (56 centimeters) of snow paralyzed Washington, while the 26.8 inches (68 centimeters) that fell in New York's Central Park was the second-highest accumulation since records began in 1869.
"We now know this blizzard came within .1 inch of being the biggest snowfall in history" in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday morning. At one point, 2,500 snow plows were operating.
"We were getting as much as three inches in an hour. So this really was the big one," he added.
- NYC schools open -
Near-record-breaking snowfall blanketed other cities up and down the East Coast, with Philadelphia and Baltimore also on the receiving end of some of the worst that Mother Nature could fling at them.
Fatalities occurred in Arkansas, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia.
In Passaic, New Jersey, a 23-year-old mother and her one-year-old son died of carbon monoxide poisoning during the storm, while three-year-old daughter was hospitalized in critical condition.
"The father was shoveling their car out and the wife and kids wanted to stay inside the car to keep warm," Detective Andrew White told AFP. "The car's exhaust pipe was covered and blocked with snowing causing carbon monoxide to enter the car."
An elderly couple in Greenville, South Carolina, also died of suspected carbon monoxide poisoning after setting up a generator in their garage to keep warm when their power went out, the Greenville County coroner Park Evans told AFP.
Hundreds of thousands were left without power at the height of the storm, including nearly 150,000 outages in North Carolina alone, emergency officials said.
Beyond the Big Apple and the US capital, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia were the hardest-hit areas. A few locations surpassed one-day and two-day snow records, said the National Weather Service.
As the storm ended and temperatures rose, New York emerged from total shutdown and lifted a sweeping travel ban on Sunday.
Broadway resumed shows and museums reopened, as snow plows quickly cleared the main avenues and temperatures hovered at about 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero Celsius).
Thousands of people flocked to parks, tobogganing, organizing snowball fights and strapping on cross-country skis, as children delighted in a winter wonderland under glorious sunshine.
Jessica Edwards, a filmmaker from Canada, joined in the fun, pulling four-year-old daughter Hazel down a hill on a sled in a New York park.
"Oh my God, she's so excited - we left the house this morning and we packed a bunch of stuff to make a snowman," she told AFP.
Schools in New York were open Monday and the mass transit system was up and running for the most part.
But in Washington residents were bracing for the disruption to drag on for days, with the House of Representatives opting to remain out of session for the coming week due to the severity of the winter storm - with no votes set until February 1.
The most expensive storm on record was Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which cost businesses and individuals $28 billion in lost sales and wages, in addition to the $129 billion in physical damage.
This storm's impact on businesses was somewhat limited by the fact that worst of it came on a weekend, though many businesses remained closed Monday, especially in the region around Washington D.C. Businesses that were affected included Broadway shows in New York, which were closed for both matinees and evening performances on Saturday.
That estimate comes from Moody's Analytics, which estimates most of the cost of the storm is from businesses that lost sales and employees that lost wages when they could not get to work. Those losses were partly offset by people who earned extra wages due to the storm, such as workers who got overtime for plowing roads and parking lots.
Also, this storm's damage to property and infrastructure was limited, according to AIR Worldwide, which comes up with estimates for insured losses, although some flooding was reported, particularly along the New Jersey shore.
Chris Christopher, a macroeconomist with IHS Global Insight, said restaurants, theatres and some retailers suffered the most as tens of millions of people hunkered down at home. Public transport was also hit - with airlines cancelling more than 12,000 flights since Friday. However, Christopher said finances in the aviation industry were unlikely to be too squeezed, as these companies normally expect at least one bad storm a year.
He estimates the economic impact could be anywhere between $350m and $850m (£246m and £597m) as there weren't many power outages, many consumers would have just purchased groceries a little earlier than usual, and some stores would have experienced a boost as demand for gas, shovels and warm clothes soared.
"After they did their shovelling, they could be online shopping or ordering movies," Mr Christopher explained. Winter Storm Jonas, as it has been unofficially dubbed, brought Washington DC and New York to a standstill and stranded tens of thousands of travellers.
There have been 29 weather-related deaths reported, and many of those resulted from car crashes, cases of hypothermia and attempts to shovel snow.