Storm

MANTOLOKING, N.J. - The view across Barnegat Bay from Sandra Witkowski's lovely breakfast room isn't so lovely anymore. Hurricane Sandy blew a neighbor's bay-front house off its foundation and into the boat channel Witkowski sees from her breakfast table. Swans and ducks serenely swim past as if the edifice is just another buoy marker. So much has changed since Oct. 29, Witkowski noticed as she and a few other families returned home Friday to this narrow, northern Ocean County barrier island town, the last storm-ravaged Jersey Shore community to allow residents to permanently come back.

ATHENS, Greece - Torrential rainfall in Greece's capital Friday crippled traffic, inundated basements and streets, and was blamed for the death of a woman whose car was trapped in floodwater, authorities said. The overnight storm swept across greater Athens, flooding hundreds of homes, causing blackouts in parts of the city, and forcing authorities to close major roads and a central subway station in Athens. "We have many, many problems - it's hard to know where to begin describing it," Deputy Fire Chief Vassilis Papageorgiou said.

Public Service Electric & Gas Co. wants to spend $3.9 billion over the next decade to protect its network against Atlantic storms, which government scientists predict will grow in intensity, the company announced Wednesday. The utility's plans, subject to approval by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, come just months after Hurricane Sandy swept through the New Jersey coastline and wiped out power to more than 2.5 million people. "It's clear that Sandy, Hurricane Irene, and the October ice storm represent extreme weather patterns that have become commonplace," said Ralph Izzo, chief executive officer and chairman of the utility's parent, Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. "Reliability is no longer enough.

ST. LOUIS - An armada of snow plows and salt spreaders deployed Wednesday across the nation's heartland as a winter storm that's already blamed for one death promised to dump up to a foot of snow in some areas and bring freezing rain and sleet to others. Winter storm warnings were issued from Colorado through Illinois. By midday Wednesday, heavy snow was already falling in Colorado and western Kansas. In Oklahoma, roads were covered with a slushy mix of snow and ice that officials said caused a crash that killed an 18-year-old man. National Weather Service meteorologist Jayson Gosselin said parts of Colorado, Kansas and northern Missouri could get 10 to 12 inches of snow.

The creeping acceptance of a mercenary scheme to name winter storms is not among the most important things in the news, or even the weather. But like an ill wind, it carries an unmistakable whiff of chaos and dissipation. The system for naming hurricanes and tropical storms was developed over decades to facilitate communications about weather patterns that can endanger large swaths of the planet. Storms must reach sustained winds of at least 40 m.p.h. before they earn a name from one of several rotating lists established by an international committee of the U.N. World Meteorological Organization in Geneva.

SUPER BOWL Monday. Super Bowl Wednesday. Surely that sounds better than Super Bowl PPD. The NFL says it's ready for next year's game at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Feb. 2, no matter the weather. Even if it means moving the game from its traditional Sunday spot. Concerns about contingencies arose recently for two reasons: Next year's Super Bowl will be outdoors at a cold-weather site for the first time and the Northeast is still recovering from a monster snowstorm that hit last weekend; the lights went out in the Louisiana Superdome during the Feb. 3 game, causing a 34-minute delay and some anxiety about whether it would resume.

Less than two days after a major blizzard pounded the Northeast with up to three feet of snow, travel was beginning to go back to normal Sunday, at least in Philadelphia. Aside from a few canceled flights to Boston on Sunday, Philadelphia International Airport was running smoothly. "We have no delays," airport spokeswoman Victoria Lupica said. Most of Amtrak's operations were also on time, except for a limited train schedule north of New York. Amtrak's limited schedule and other service alerts are available at http://www.amtrak.com/service-alerts-and-notices . Airport travelers can call 1-800-745-4283 or check the website www.phl.org for information on delays and cancellations.

BOSTON - A storm that forecasters warned could be a blizzard for the history books began clobbering the New York-to-Boston corridor on Friday, grounding flights, closing workplaces, and sending people rushing to get home ahead of a possible 1 to 3 feet of snow. From New Jersey to Maine, shoppers crowded into supermarkets and hardware stores to buy food, snow shovels, flashlights, and generators, something that became a precious commodity after Sandy hit in October. Across much of New England, schools closed well ahead of the first snowflakes.

NEWPORT, R.I. - Travel eased and life slowly returned to normal for most New Englanders after a massive blizzard, but many remained without power in cold and darkened homes and a forecast of rain brought a new worry: Weight piling up dangerously on roofs already burdened by heavy snow. The storm that slammed into the region with up to 3 feet of snow was blamed for at least 14 deaths in the Northeast and Canada, and brought some of the highest accumulations ever recorded. Still, coastal areas were largely spared catastrophic damage.