Unlike the two earlier storms that slammed southern New Jersey, this one came on a weekday, throwing the regular work routines awry.
Most commuters, however, seemed to heed warnings to stay home. Newark Penn Station, usually a beehive of activity at 8 a.m., was desolate with only a few dozen people scurrying about.
The state Transportation Department said that by midmorning, 1,500 plow and salt trucks had major highways in good shape, though backstreets and ramps were slippery.
Speed restrictions were in place on the New Jersey Turnpike and Atlantic City Expressway. From Camden County to Jersey City, motorists were warned to not to park on the streets. The state said any vehicles abandoned or disabled on state highways between 6 a.m. Wednesday and 6 a.m. Thursday would be towed.
The snow turned to rain in most parts of the state early in the morning, but forecasters warned the precipitation would turn back to snow and that blizzard-like conditions were possible later in the day.
"It's going to snow," said National Weather Service meteorologist Lee Robertson. "It's going to snow a lot."
Gov. Chris Christie and state police Superintendent Rick Fuentes authorized the closure of all state offices, and local governments pleaded with drivers to stay off the streets while plows went to work.
The state's courts and judicial administrative offices closed.
Colleges and hundreds of public and private schools also gave students and teachers the day off.
NJ Transit told its bus passengers their passes would be honored on trains.
Continental Airlines, the carrier responsible for about two-thirds of the flights at Newark Liberty International Airport, said it wouldn't even try to fly there.
Even jury deliberations in a federal corruption trial in Newark were scratched.
Practically the only things sure to move Wednesday were plows. While some local governments fretted about whether they would have enough rock salt to handle the storm, the state Department of Transportation said it had 75,000 tons - enough to melt snow and ice on the major roads.
Early Wednesday morning, the National Weather Service replaced a winter storm warning with a blizzard warning for all but the northernmost area of New Jersey. The warnings were to be in place until midnight.
By midnight Tuesday, snowfall totals ranged from a dusting to 7 inches. Not long after, the snow turned to rain. The most serious snow and winds were expected to kick in later in the morning.
Robertson said the winds could reach 40 mph. In Jersey City, officials were telling residents to secure their balcony furniture. The Delaware River Port Authority said that as of noon, no empty tractor-trailers would be allowed on its four Philadelphia-area bridges.
Forecasts called for most of the state to get more than a foot of fresh snow, with as much as 20 inches roughly following the New Jersey Turnpike from the mouth of the Delaware Bay to the state's suburbs of New York City.
For northern New Jersey, it would be the first major winter storm of the season.
In southern New Jersey, the predicted amounts would be enough to break seasonal snowfall records in National Park, the observation spot for the Philadelphia Airport, and at the Atlantic City International Airport.
The National Park record of 65.5 inches could fall with 9.1 inches of snow. Atlantic City needed only 4.1 inches to break its all-time record of 46.9 inches.
The one area expected to get substantially less than a foot was a sliver of the coast in Cape May and Atlantic counties.
But in some ways, the forecast for that area was more dire.
"When you have a layer of snow and then a layer of rain, it weighs down the power lines," Atlantic City Electric spokeswoman Bridget Shelton said.
That area knows that well.
Some 90,000 homes and businesses in the state, most of them along the shore, lost electricity during Saturday's storm, which dumped 2 feet across the southern half of the state.
By 7 a.m. Wednesday, the utility company said that about 12,000 customers were still without power. Only a few scattered new outages were reported.
David Read, of Wildwood Crest, lost power in the weekend storm and was arranging places he could stay if he lost it again.
"We just grin and bear it, do what we have to do," Read said. "This has been a freak winter."
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Associated Press writers David Porter in Newark and Shawn Marsh in Trenton contributed to this report.
