Season’s First Big Storm Blankets Northeast

The Northeast’s first major storm of the season brought a blustery surge of sleet and snow Friday, closing schools, clogging highways and triggering a rush on snow blowers and shovels.

The snow was blamed for at least three traffic deaths, and caused lengthy airport delays and hundreds of canceled flights.

Forecasters said the system threatened to deliver an even heavier blow over the weekend, with as much as 18 inches forecast in parts of New England.

“We’re all set,� said Richard Christiano of Lexington, Mass. “I just bought 100 pounds of ice melt and we took out our snow shovels last night. We’ll be getting a good night’s sleep and getting ready for some shoveling.�

“We’re looking at a classic coastal storm, a nor’easter,� said National Weather Service meteorologist Barbara Watson. “The further north you go, the more accumulation you’ll get, so that in parts of Maine, you could be measuring it in feet.�

About 200 flights were canceled Friday at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport, and travelers were told to expect delays of as long as three hours. At New York’s LaGuardia Airport, about 100 flights had been canceled by Friday evening, and other flight delays approached three hours. Delays were also reported at the airports in Philadelphia and Atlanta.

Drivers along the East Coast endured sloppy rush-hour crawls. The combination of snow, sleet and rain caused so many fender-benders in Philadelphia that a radio traffic reporter called it “a $500-deductible day.�

Forecasters in Massachusetts predicted as much as 18 inches of snow through Sunday. Near-blizzard conditions were in the offing for parts of Maine and New Hampshire. In New Jersey, as much as 14 inches of snow was forecast.

There was too much snow even for Santa Claus in Frederick, Md., where a 6-inch accumulation and forecasts for more prompted a week’s postponement of the downtown Kris Kringle Parade.

In New Jersey, an outdoor festival had to be postponed because of the weather, forcing ice carvers to wait a week to fashion “Santa’s Holiday Village� out of a ton of ice.

Ahead of the storm, many schools sent students home early and grocery and hardware stores filled with shoppers.

For New York, the temperature hit the freezing point as the first flakes descended on the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

Tana and Howard Graham, visiting the city from Jackson, Miss., said they hadn’t experienced any serious snow for a half-dozen years.

“We’re loving it,� Tana Graham said. “It’s putting us in the Christmas spirit.�

Diana Maria Gilly, 23 months, got her first glimpse of snow as she left Manhattan’s Ritz-Carlton hotel in her stroller.

“Mommy, what are those things falling from the sky?� asked Diana, visiting from London with her mother.

Two people were killed in Virginia -- a man, 20, Thursday in an accident on a slick road, and a man, 41, Friday when his pickup ran off a snow-covered road, struck a tree and overturned.

In Pennsylvania, a school bus careened off a slippery road and crashed into a van, killing the van’s 74-year-old driver. None of the three dozen children on the bus was injured. Massachusetts dodged a possible idling of its snowplows Friday when the state reached a tentative agreement with representatives for private plow contractors. The contractors’ group had voted to work this weekend only if drivers were not required to carry global positioning phones demanded by the Massachusetts Highway Department. They agreed to use the phones on a trial basis.