Snow drifts and whiteout conditions battered New England on Monday night and into Tuesday, especially parts of Massachusetts, where thousands were left without power and a high tide threatened coastal flooding.

By Tuesday morning, thousands of people and a nuclear plant in Massachusetts reported power losses, according to Boston media. There were nearly 22,000 reported outages in the state, with South Shore, Cape Cod and Nantucket hit hardest, the Boston Globe reported.

The National Weather Service measured 11.8in of snow at Boston’s Logan international airport, which will remain shut down through Wednesday. CBS Boston reported up to 24in of snowfall in Oxford and more than 29in in Shrewsbury.

High winds were reported, including a gust of 78mph on Nantucket. A blizzard warning remained in effect in the area through Wednesday morning. And the Weather Channel is reporting that an additional 12in to 18in of snowfall is possible in parts of New England, especially Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

Massachusetts’ Emergency Management Agency (Mema) shut down the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth “due to loss of offsite power”. On Twitter, officials from the plan assured residents, writing in all caps: “No public safety hazard.”

The Massachusetts governor, Charlie Baker, declared a state of emergency on Monday and ordered a statewide travel ban beginning at midnight. The Boston public transport system and commuter rail lines were also closed at midnight and remained shut down on Tuesday. Boston’s public schools cancelled classes for Tuesday and Wednesday, the city announced.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Baker said despite the heavy snowfall, the night was relatively without incident in terms of accidents and injuries.

“So far so good,” said Baker, who was managing his first snowstorm since being sworn in earlier this month.

Meanwhile, New York and New Jersey groaned back to life after travel bans. Despite dire warnings of record-breaking blizzards, New York City saw just 4in to 6in of snow; La Guardia airport saw 11.5in. Long Island took the brunt of the snowfall, with 16in.

Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, ordered all but the most essential government workers in his state home from Monday afternoon until Wednesday at the earliest. “Please stay home,” he said on Monday.

New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, banned travel from 11pm on Monday for all but emergency vehicles on roads in 13 counties, including New York City, suburban Westchester and Long Island, with the threat of a $300 fine for violators. He also made the controversial decision to close the city’s subway system.

On Tuesday morning, the governors lifted most of the travel bans in their states, with residents of only one county still under an emergency ban.

Speaking at a press conference, Cuomo defended his decision to shut down the train service.

“You act on the information that you had at the time … Obviously in this region there was less snow than anticipated,” he said.

In all, the governors in six states had declared emergencies, but early on Tuesday weather forecasters began to speculate that they had got it badly wrong.

“My deepest apologies to many key decision-makers and so many members of the general public,” tweeted Gary Szatkowski, a meteorologist in Mount Holly, New Jersey.