STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

wow - looks like Michigan escaped this one - although we had 75-100 accidents on local highways last night due to a very rapid formation of ice...

here's the NY story:

Two men shovel a sidewalk in the Brooklyn section of New York early on Sunday, Februaly 12, ...

document.write(getElapsed("20060212T131558Z"));
38 minutes agoUPDATED 23 MINUTES AGO

NEW YORK - The region's first major storm this winter slammed the Northeast with a foot of snow by early Sunday and showed no signs of letting up, canceling flights from Boston to Washington, D.C., and knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes.

The New York metro area and much of the Northeast were under a blizzard warning, with the National Weather Service predicting winds up to 50 mph could bring down trees and power lines. Heavy snow warnings were issued from eastern Kentucky to New England.

On average, 12 to 18 inches of snow were expected throughout the metro region, with temperatures as low as 23 degrees, forecasters said. In Wayne, N.J., a foot of snow had accumulated early Sunday, National Weather Service meteorologist Michael Silva said. About half that was reported in New York City and Long Island.

In Maryland, more than 70,000 customers were without power, according to Baltimore Gas & Electric Company's Web site. Power was also out at hundreds of homes in New Jersey and Long Island.

In a rare display, lightning bolts joined the snow over LaGuardia Airport, where most airlines had canceled all flights until Sunday afternoon. Delta, Delta Shuttle and American Airlines had canceled all flights at the airport until Monday, said Steve Coleman, spokesman for The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

More than 100 Sunday flights were canceled at John F. Kennedy International airport, including all Delta flights, and several carriers canceled most or all of their Sunday departing flights at Newark Liberty International.

Delta said it canceled its Sunday arrivals and departures at several other airports in the storm's path, including those in Philadelphia; Boston; Baltimore; Newark; Providence, R.I.; Washington, D.C.; and Hartford, Conn.

Four inches of snow had accumulated in parts of Fairfax, Va. late Saturday, and crews worked to clear the runways at Washington Dulles International Airport in suburban Virginia.

But the storm is good news and free advertising for ski resorts after an unseasonably warm January dragged down business, said Betsy Strickler at Jiminy Peak ski resort in western Massachusetts.

"The best PR is when people look up in the sky ... see the snow start to fall," she said.

In the hours before the snow began falling, New York residents formed long lines at supermarkets as they stocked up on bottled water and basic supplies.

The city's 353 salt-spreading plow trucks went out with 200,000 tons of rock salt on hand, said Kathy Dawkins, spokeswoman for the Department of Sanitation. Twenty machines throughout the five boroughs would be melting up to 60 tons of snow per hour, she said.

The department's trucks have some 6,300 miles of city streets and roads to plow _ about the distance from New York to Los Angeles and back, Dawkins said.

The New Jersey Department of Transportation had prepared 600 trucks to plow snow and spread salt, plus 1,100 contractor trucks, the department said. Officials also lowered the speed limit on the entire length of the New Jersey Turnpike to 45 mph.

In Maryland, about 2,100 road workers were on the job and more than 1,900 salt trucks and plows were out clearing roads _ nearly a full deployment, officials said.

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Associated Press writers Nahal Toosi and Desmond Butler in New York City, Bruce Shipkowski in Trenton, Sarah Brumfield in Baltimore and Brandie M. Jefferson in Boston contributed to this report.

ah - sledding... maybe if I get the stitch written soon enough, maybe I'll venture out myself - our sleds are very much neglected... I was also wondering if the pond out back is frozen enough to shovel off for ice skating...

I love that you spontaneously made a snow angel - totally the type of thing I would do - carpe diem!

This is so unfair!!!  I want snow!!! 

Seriously, I haven't seen even a flake this year and usually we get at least a few snow storms.  How is it possible that you guys got snow in Atlanta, atlgirl, and we didn't even get a flake?!?!?!

Maybe we won't get any snow this year. 

I'm in Central NJ and it is still snowing very hard at noon time. We have had white out conditions and blowing and drifting.

On the side of my house which is out of the wind, DH measured 18.5 inches on the yardstick!

I LOVE a blizzard!

atlgirl wrote:

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Denver, CO is actually warmer than Atlanta today. Weird.

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Yup, we're finally up to about 43 here now - but before that storm got to you, it passed through here and dropped a couple inches of snow along with plummeting temps - we didn't get above 25 Friday, and barely broke freezing yesterday!

Totally jealous of all your snow though!  Like I said, we only got and inch or two out of the deal - I want a blizzard damnit !