A woman walks past a bicycle covered in snow during a winter snowstorm in Cambridge, Massachusetts January 24, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

NEW YORK - A swath of the US East Coast from Philadelphia to New York City to Maine was bracing for a potentially historic blizzard on Monday expected to dump as much as 3 feet (90 cm) of snow and snarl transportation for tens of millions of people.

The National Weather Service on Sunday issued a blizzard warning for the northern section of the East Coast from Monday afternoon until Tuesday, placing states from New Jersey to Indiana under winter storm watches and advisories. Airlines were already canceling hundreds of flights ahead of the storm.

"This could be the biggest snowstorm in the history of this city," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told a news conference, saying snowfall could reach up to 3 feet.

De Blasio told residents of America's financial capital and most populous city to stay off the roads and to "prepare for something worse than we have seen before."

The biggest snowfall on record in New York City was the storm of Feb 11-12, 2006, that dropped 26.9 inches (68 cm), according to the city's Office of Emergency Management.