Snowstorm Snarls Northeast Travel

Up To A Foot Of Snow Forces Cancellation Of More Than 1,100 Flights In New York Area Alone

(CBS/AP)  Up to a foot of snow on Friday interrupted what had been a mild winter in much of the Northeast and created havoc for travelers, forcing the cancellation of more than 1,100 flights in the New York area alone.

Roads were slick throughout the region and there were hundreds of accidents, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged people to look on the bright side.

"The timing is perfect, if you think about it," he said. "We'll have the whole weekend to clean up the mess."

If that didn't cheer up his constituents, the mayor also announced that free hot chocolate and free sled rentals were available Friday at one park in each of the city's five boroughs.

By 9 a.m., more than 4 inches of snow had accumulated in Central Park, reports WCBS in New York. Only 5.7 inches of snow in total had fallen all winter before Friday.

Half a foot of snow fell in New York City. Up to a foot was forecast in suburban counties, and up to 9 inches fell in parts of Connecticut. Storm warnings extended northward across Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. In many places, snow was changing over to rain, sometimes freezing rain.

The storm was not unusual for mid-February, but it was easily the New York area's most significant storm of the winter. The expansive system, which had brought everything from freezing rain to sleet to snow in parts of Kentucky, Missouri and Illinois on Thursday, lumbered eastward and northward overnight.

Across the country, there has been more snowfall than usual this winter, reports CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston. The 45 inches in Chicago are double the norm; the 137 inches in Caribou, Maine nearly three times last year's snowfall. In Wisconsin, snow dumps had to be opened to handle the 60 feet they've accumulated so far this winter.

In Missouri, where the problem was mostly ice rather than snow, the State Highway Patrol cited slippery roads as factors in accidents that killed five people Thursday and early Friday.

By mid-afternoon Friday there were 548 flight cancellations at New York's LaGuardia Airport, 368 at Newark Liberty International Airport and 197 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, said Steve Coleman, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Delays at the three airports ranged from one to three hours.

More than a quarter of the flights at Philadelphia International Airport were canceled, and delays there reached up to 4 hours Friday morning, airport spokeswoman Phyllis VanIstendal said.

Many flights also were canceled at Boston's Logan International Airport, where delays ranged from three to six hours.

The Northeast airports' problems caused residual delays of an hour or more for flights across the country headed to the region, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Low visibility at another major airport - Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International - added to the slowdown.

"It's a domino thing," said Phil Orlandella, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority. "If one airport has a problem, it reflects anything that goes into there or out of there. Logan's at the end of the domino trail."

Some airlines waived their fee for passengers rebooking tickets.

In Philadelphia, Karla Andrews and her group of 40 cheerleaders were told Friday morning that their Southwest Airlines flight to Orlando was going to be delayed at least until late afternoon. In all, 110 cheerleaders aged 8 to 18 from the group were delayed on their three separate flights to Florida.

Andrews, 27, took it in stride.

"That's the good thing about being stuck with cheerleaders," she said. "They're always having fun."

Motorists, too, had problems getting around. The speed limit along the New Jersey Turnpike was reduced to 35 mph, and jackknifed rigs shut down southbound lanes of Interstate 95 for a couple of hours in Greenwich, Conn. One man in Connecticut and two others in Ohio were killed in storm-related car crashes.

"I didn't go over 30 mph on the expressway," said Paul May, whose commute on New York's Long Island on Friday took three times as much as normal. "It's very slippery. The roads are treacherous."

Times Square was a mess of gray slush by afternoon, but that didn't matter to Sydney Cooper of Kingsport, Tenn.

"It's great," said Cooper. "We don't get snow in Tennessee, so I prayed for it. I was supposed to leave this morning but my flight got canceled."

Mark Mathebane, a fashion designer from Brooklyn, was taking it less in stride.

"I hate the snow," he said. "It dirties your shoes, especially when they throw salt on the ground. Salt destroys leather."

In New Haven, Conn., the snow forced Yale graduate student Andrew Goldstone to take cover under an overhang while waiting for a campus bus. Not that he was complaining.

"I'm glad to see it, finally, after such a bland, wet, warmish winter," he said. "This is the kind of weather that I love, which I've been waiting for. Of course, I don't have to drive in it."

Up to 8 inches were expected in New Hampshire's ski country, which unlike areas to the south has seen a winter full of white.

"People coming up from Boston are blown away by how much snow there is," said Alice Pearce, president of SkiNH, a group that represents many New Hampshire ski areas.

Pearce said her family built a snowman on Thanksgiving, thinking it might last a few days. "It's still in the yard, buried under the snow. It's a big mound."

[juwboy]

Hominatrix53:

How about a prayer for all the thousands who die every summer in Phoenix from tropical diseases like cholera, yellow fever, dengue fever, Ebola and typhoid, too.

[juwboy]

Hominatrix53:

Phoenix, Arizona often has summer daytime temperatures at around 110F for about 40 consecutive days. It is one of the hottest populated areas on Earth. During the summer, the streets are littered with thousands of dead and dying bodies caused by their annual malaria epidemic :-):-):-)

If sea levels are going to rise, we should be preparing for a mass population movement to higher ground, instead of making futile efforts to keep temperatures at their present levels.

I still say that we should be putting far more effort into preventing cold weather deaths because, globally, they are about 1000-fold higher than deaths from hot weather.

At the present time, our planet is TOO COLD.

"Which of the following two extreme weather situations causes more deaths globally?

(A) a cold winter
(B) a hot summer

The answer is (A) by a huge margin.

So, why aren''''t we doing everything we can to promote and accelerate global warming until the two numbers are comparable?

That''''s when our planet will have its ideal optimum climate.

Why do global warming hand-wringers consider hot weather deaths a disaster but completely ignore cold weather deaths?"

You continually ask this question as if it were important. Warmer temperatures will do more than make the thermometer go up. Are you familiar with malaria? It flourishes in warmer climates - as do many other diseases. And as the temperature rises, so will the incidence of diseases formerly confined to tropical regions. I won''t even go into what effect rising sea levels will have on the hundreds of millions of people living on the coastlines around the world. Your question is silly and irrelevant.

Margaret Thatcher coined the phrase "global warming." Scientists have always known what it was. I assume they didn''t bother correcting anyone as they understand the right''s penchant for anything that can fit on a bumpersticker.

[grammawhamma]

It is no longer called Global Warming..."THEY" have now changed it to global climate change. How convenient!

[mainemade]

Global warming my butt! This storm is called WINTER!

Yes, I believe global warming exsists but, right here, right now this is called winter.

[lloydbest1]

"Which of the following two extreme weather situations causes more deaths globally?

(A) a cold winter
(B) a hot summer

The answer is (A) by a huge margin."
Posted by juwboy at 06:04 AM : Feb 23, 2008

I ain''t so sure....You need a source.
But let''s say juwboy IS correct and "global warming" IS a crock-and-a-half perpetuated by the hysterical left...
Wouldn''t it be prudent to dial back our emission of gasses known to have a heat retaining effect, anyway? Just on its own merits - regardless of whatever influence those gasses have on our climate?
I can''t speak for anyone else but I''m not too comfortable being a guinea pig in what amounts to be the world''s biggest uncontrolled experiment. Even if, as juwboy suggests, global warming (should it be real) is more a positive than a negative all that land based permanent ice has to go somewhere when it melts. I live at 300 feet so I''m not much affected but if I were living in Miami, Amsterdam or Prince Edward Island, I''d be pretty p!ssed at the prospect of having to bail the Atlantic out of my living room because of an 8 foot sea level rise.

[cfin5]

Global Warming in its touted cause is a crockapoop. Yeah, all those green house gases have even drifted into outer space and caused Venus, Mars,....and our Moon for crying out loud to warm up at the same time and ratio. Couldn''t be the Sun going through its normal cycles. Egore don''t care really either with all the "E"xhaust pipin'' he does around the globe.......I for dang sure hope it does get warmer up North,....because that is where all my fun living, yearning to walk freer hopes reside. To start over in a clean environment and do it right natures way.

[juwboy]

Which of the following two extreme weather situations causes more deaths globally?

(A) a cold winter
(B) a hot summer

The answer is (A) by a huge margin.

So, why aren''t we doing everything we can to promote and accelerate global warming until the two numbers are comparable?

That''s when our planet will have its ideal optimum climate.

Why do global warming hand-wringers consider hot weather deaths a disaster but completely ignore cold weather deaths?

[lloydbest1]

In no way do I wish to trivialize this storm but:

Just over two years ago NYC was hit with its worst snowstorm ever - just under 27 inches fell on 2/11-12/2006.
Lets go back a little further. I was living in the Hudson Valley at the time and on the night of January 19/20, 1961 my home town was smacked down by a snowstorm that dumped between 29 and 36 inches of the stuff depending on where you lived; and that one only lasted a little over 18 hours. This was all followed by some of the coldest temperatures the area has seen since the "Little Ice Age". The thermometer read -38 on my back porch the morning of the 22nd. Not so unusual, perhaps, if you live in International Falls or Grand Forks but D@MNNED rare in a place not 80 miles from New York City.

[calico91]

Around the world, vast areas have been buried under some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades. Central and southern China, the United States, and Canada were hit hard by snowstorms. In China, snowfall was so heavy that over 100,000 houses collapsed under the weight of snow.
Posted by KGERRELS at 11:44 PM : Feb 22, 2008

Yep, another sign of "Global Warming".

I remember all that hype in the 70''s too, about an ice age.

Oh well, this too shall pass. Eventually there will be a bunch of scientists saying....again.... that we are entering the next ice age.

[calico91]

Hopefully Al Gore''''s hot air he uses for his Global Warming farce and put it to good use thawing out the streets.
P.S. I heard the Artic ice packs are nearly back to normal!
Posted by kgerrels at 10:03 PM : Feb 22, 2008

Right on! I don''t understand all this global warming controversy when historical and geological proof indicates that this planet has experienced climactic cycles since its beginnings....before we were even here! Do scientists actually believe that in one or two centuries they are capable of telling the rest of us what happened billions of years ago and that our recent weather patterns are due to man''s recent existence on the plant? I''ve heard that this year''s snowpack in the Rockies might prove to be one of record-setting proportions.

[sgtrds]

I now live in Florida, where it was sunny and 82 degrees today, and I didn''''t mind not having to scrape my windshield in the least. I travel out west in the summer sometimes, but I''''m always back here before the weather turns cold. You guys can keep all my share of the snow, ice, and cold, I won''''t miss it.

Posted by veteran71 at 06:00 PM : Feb 22, 2008

I was raised in Michigan and now live in L.A., so I can relate completely.

[ibzjem]

Excuse me Mainstream Media,
But why are snowstorms only national news when they happen in the North East?

You guys are so biased to your own little world out there.

Posted by hawksprings at 01:54 PM : Feb 22, 2008

I''ve said that before too. Here in Missouri we had a ton of ICE. I''ll take 6" or more of snow any day over 1" of ice. Let it snow. Plow it off the road and go on with your life. Ice is a different story.

[denn034]

Snow performs a valid economic and environmental function but, it''s cold and a pain and I hate it for that reason. Down with snow!

[calico91]

I live in an area in So. California that never gets snow, well almost never. We got 6 inches about a week ago and the old-timers said they haven''t seen that since the ''80s. You''d be amazed at the number of people that were slipping on patches of Global Warming ;)

[mainemade]

I''ve been a New Englander my whole life. I personally wouldn''t trade my state of Maine for any other. I''ve tried all the tires. Don''t care much for all weather radials in winter. Studs are good but costly at a time where heat is an issue. The Snow tires are real good. The new winter snow/ice tires are better. But on ice...you might as well have skates on cause no tire is much help. Nor is 4 wheel drive. The best thing any of us can do to avoid a wreck is SLOW down! Most of our accidents are because of stupid driving decisions and not much else.
The way I see it, it is WINTER! Snow happens, ice happens. Deal with it or move somewhere else, cause you know it''s coming. We even get more warning than tornado alley or New Orleans and Florida get for the hurricanes.

[cfin5]

Posted by squidly8 at 03:40 PM : Feb 22, 2008------I like the snow also. But my main point being which I failed to say was driving on bare ICE. Without studs it doesn''t matter what tire you have on. The reason for having them on all four tires and not just the front is so that when going around a corner your back tires don''t lose traction and send you into a helicopter spin into the ditch. In short, it''s also a "steering issue"......BE CAREFUL!

[ponco seno]

I moved to north Alabama from LI NY 5 years ago, we love it, no snow, low taxes, big homes for half the price, people are cool and lay back, 20 min commute vs 1:30hr. The TEMP as I write this note is 58D.
Peace!!

[squidly8]

cfin5, I have lived in the Northeast and MI all my life and never had a pair studded snow tires. I have never needed anything more than all season radials and front wheel drive. Mostly it is about knowing how to drive in it. Slow down, try to keep from stopping and give yourself about 3 times the seperation that you would on dry roads (time to stop or manuever).

I like driving in the snow! I will be headed home in this little storm in about 30 minutes!