Snow

It puts smiles on the faces of kids; dread in the hearts of commuters. It is snow, and there's a "very good chance" the Philadelphia area will get at least a measureable amount by tonight, according to Accu-Weather. In fact, it could be downright nasty. "What we have here," an Accu-Weather meteorologist said this morning, "is a storm moving from the Plains states that now is over Kentucky and will reach the coast in the Carolinas. It is expected to reform there, following the normal winter pattern, and move up the coast.

Highways made slick by a fast-moving snowstorm turned the Philadelphia area into a demolition derby yesterday, with multivehicle accidents clogging highways and killing at least one person. The storm, which sent commuters fleeing homeward early for the second time this month, dumped snow as rapidly as an inch an hour across much of the region and created "whiteout" visibility conditions in some areas. "It dumped a lot of snow real quick and people did not adjust," said John Hagerty, a spokesman for the New Jersey State Police, after a string of multivehicle accidents stopped traffic on Route 42 in Deptford Township, Gloucester County.

THE CITY is once again mismanaging another touchy subject: Snow Shoveling Citations. The law states that "each homeowner has 24 hours after the last snowflake to clear a path," yet Mayor Street's goons are out there on a Sunday to write out citations. Nice! Everyone who got one of those pieces of toilet fodder should send them back, noting the time of the final snowflake, the time of the citation, and include a quarter so that the goons can get a clue. Sadly, that's not where my complaint ends.

This is how it was in those December days in the tiny, improbably named village of Lopez in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania in those long-ago decades few of us can now recall. We don't remember whether it usually snowed six inches before 12 a.m. or 12 inches before 6 a.m., but always, always it snowed. For us - my cousins and me and our mothers and fathers and our aunts and uncles - that old poem, "Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house," was literally true.

Well it's about time someone cast a vote for snow! I read Dorothy Storck's "Soft snow, tough talk" on Jan. 27, and I wholeheartedly agree with her observations on snow. Her comments centered on how everybody (with the possible exception of the Philadelphia Streets Department) overreacts to this meteorological phenomenon with which we have recently been blessed. Why can't people just relax and enjoy it? When was the last time you just sat at your window and watched it snow?

Flakes might be flying for a while Wednesday, and probably won't add up to much. In Philadelphia, light snow might fall before and after some late morning and afternoon rain. But even the rain is unlikely, with only a 30 percent chance of any precipitation. Otherwise, skies are expected to be dry through the weekend. Only 2.5 inches of snow has fallen so far this winter in Philadelphia, almost all of it on Jan. 21. "Being that any snow should fall during the daylight hours, accumulations should be somewhat limited and mainly on unpaved surfaces," according to the National Weather Service.

The Philadelphia area was hit with its third snowfall of the season yesterday as two winter storms passed through, neither packing the wallop that forecasters had predicted. The first storm sent school students home early in several suburbs before tapering off in the afternoon. The second, moving up from the south, was expected to dump, at most, another one to three inches of snow on the region last night. At 6:30 p.m., as a light snow fell over the region, the National Weather Service canceled the winter storm warning that had been in effect all day, saying the threat of heavy snow had decreased.

Now you really didn't think we were going to get through the winter with only that measly inch of snow back on Super Sunday morn, did you? Well, did you? If you did, dream on. Because the Philadelphia area was due to get whacked with its first significant snow storm of the winter today. Before it's over around midnight tonight, up to five inches of snow could be on the ground. But with temperatures in the 40s tomorrow, it probably won't stay around too long.

What happened? Here we were expecting a legitimate snow storm, something like six or eight or 10 inches, and what'd we get? Nothing. Accu-Weather explained squeamishly this morning that the storm from the South developed too far to the east to bring any snow here. Instead, the storm dumped as much as a foot on the Jersey shore. Although the predicted snowfall failed to materialize here, there's an outside chance we still could get an inch or so by the time the storm moves on up the coast.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - For some reason, Scandinavia is not its frigid self, with unusually warm weather delaying the onset of winter in northern latitudes normally decked in white. The lack of snow has been bad news for winter sports - World Cup ski races have been dropped, or held on artificial snow, and mountain ski resorts are unable to open. There are even reports of bird song and blooming gardens in some places typically entering the winter freeze at this time of year. "Some flowers, like roses, have actually begun to blossom for a second time," said Mats Rosenberg, a biologist in Orebro, south-central Sweden.

Here's a Monday score: Mother Nature 2, Major League Baseball 0. The game between the Atlanta Braves and the Colorado Rockies in Denver Monday night was postponed by a snowstorm - the third time in eight days that the white stuff has frozen out the summer pastime at Coors Field. In Minneapolis, the Minnesota Twins were proactive, preemptively postponing their game against the Miami Marlins seven hours before game time, while it was still 45 degrees and way before a single flake could fall at Target Field.

ATLANTIC CITY - Craig Snow of Hope Force International arrived in Atlantic City from Nashville two days after Sandy. "I was about to leave because I didn't think that Atlantic City got hit," said Snow, a tall, bald, neatly dressed out-of-towner, now ensconced in a fourth-floor office suite in a dreary building on New York Avenue. "Then I realized Atlantic City did not have the dramatic but did have the traumatic. " A veteran of rebuilding in Biloxi, Miss., and New Orleans, Snow's and other missionary groups dug in for the long haul in this casino town, setting up the Atlantic City Long Term Recovery Group and securing nearly $1 million in grants to help rebuild.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - At one point during a siege that went from dawn to dusk to night, Black Hawk helicopters searched from above and bomb squads swarmed a stretch of Norfolk Street where two brothers lived unassuming lives for 10 years. Streets for most of the day were abandoned by fiat - from Cambridge to Watertown, from Newton to Waltham, Belmont, and Arlington, and the Allston-Brighton neighborhood of Boston. Trains, planes, and subways were halted, leaving no way to get to Boston and no way to get out. Locked indoors on a sunny, warm day, parents tried to distract their children as a real-time dragnet played out on Twitter and television.

ST. LOUIS - Two deaths have been blamed on a strong spring storm system that's brought everything from tornadoes to ice and snow to much of the Midwest and parts of the southeast United States. Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said Thursday that one person died and several were injured after a reported tornado struck Kemper County in the far eastern part of the state. Tabatha Lott, a dispatcher in Noxubee County, said there were "numerous reports of injuries" in the town of Shuqualak, though it wasn't immediately clear how many were injured.

THERE IS something about a late March snowstorm, a gentle finger wagging at us from heaven saying "I'm not finished yet. " There is something maddening in the thought that we do not control the seasons, that all our human capital amounts to nothing in the face of the winds and the rising tides and the steel-colored clouds. It is wholly appropriate that such things happen during this week of miracles, when Jews celebrate deliverance and Christians resurrection. It's a wakeup call that life is gloriously unpredictable.

  Yes, it's technically spring. Yes, famed groundhog Punxsutawney Phil indicated spring would arrive early. Yes, Jersey Shore entertainment venues spent the weekend cranking up for the beach season, and there was a regatta on the Schuylkill. But - and you knew this was coming – it appears Old Man Winter has decided to snow on this parade. Philadelphia is expected to get one to three inches of mostly slushy stuff Monday. North and west of the city there could be two to four inches, and the Shore could get three to six, by some estimates.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Few signs of spring are being found in parts of the Midwest as a snowstorm tracks eastward mostly along Interstate 70, bringing heavy snow and high winds. Dozens of Palm Sunday services were canceled throughout Missouri, and about 100 flights were scrapped at Lambert Field in St. Louis. Winter storm warnings and advisories have been issued for Sunday and Monday as far east as Pennsylvania. The storm dumped 7 to 9 inches of snow from eastern Kansas into central Missouri before tapering off Sunday morning, said Dan Hawblitzel, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in suburban Kansas City.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - An early spring snowstorm forced the cancellation of more than 100 flights at Denver International Airport and closed several roads Saturday as it moved eastward, dumping more than a foot of snow in some places. The snow started falling around midnight in northeast Colorado and then moved into northwest Kansas and southwest Nebraska. Ten to 15 inches had fallen by Saturday afternoon north of Interstate 70 in northwest Kansas and northeast Colorado, with an additional inch or two expected in the area, said Ryan Husted, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Goodland, Kan., where 15 inches of snow had fallen.

By Todd R. Nelson It is 4 in the morning. My mind is a blank page. Our dogs are insisting that something unusual is taking place out in the moonlit yard. I peer out the front door at a long-tailed shadow dancing on a crusty sheet of snow. It's a red fox, oblivious to our stares. Perhaps he was enjoying the sunflower seeds scattered under our bird feeder, digging and nibbling on the kernels scattered by brash, greedy chickadees and nuthatches during the day. Or was he pouncing on the unsuspecting mice and moles that had tunneled to the same spot to pilfer their share of scarce food?