Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

“The advisories have been canceled,” said WTAJ TV 10’s Brian Schroeder this morning.
The news was welcome relief for residents and travelers in northern Blair County today. Winter storm warnings had been issued as early as Sunday for a double-barreled snow event which was expected to dump between six to 10 inches or more of snow between Monday and Tuesday.
Originally the warning had been posted through 1 p.m. today. Schroeder said the area might see anywhere from a trace to two inches of additional snow through this evening.
The National Weather Service said in an advisory shortly before 11 p.m. last night that the storm would track northeast to the Gulf of Maine by Tuesday afternoon. Snowfall totals for the two-day event were expected to hit the four to eight range by this evening. The advisory called for blustery and cold conditions tonight with more snow in the northern and western mountains.
Schroeder said the National Weather Service had received three inches of snow by 9 p.m. Monday. With additional snow since Monday night, Blair County unofficially had about five inches by this morning.
Schroeder said northern Blair County motorists’ biggest concern would be with blowing and drifting snow on some roadways this afternoon and tonight.
Verden Latchford of the Tyrone Highway Department said crews were out this morning after working two shifts yesterday. He said crews were out until 3 p.m. on Monday and were called back out from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Latchford said the snow emergency declaration in Tyrone would remain in effect until at least 8 a.m. on Wednesday. The declaration triggers an odd/even parking policy when a snowfall of three inches or more occurs in the borough. Vehicles must be parked on the odd-numbered side of the street today since March 1 is an odd-numbered day. If you normally park on a street which only has parking on one side, the vehicle must be moved to another area.
The declaration also requires residents and businesses to clear sidewalks of snow.
Bellwood Borough also declared a snow emergency which triggers the odd/even policy after two inches of snow or more has occurred. Bellwood Borough’s operations manager Randy Showalter said the emergency would remain in effect until at least 11 o’clock this evening.
Tara Callahan of PennDOT District Nine said the crews have been out continually working on state-maintained roads since 4 a.m. Monday, working 12-hour shifts.
Both the Bellwood-Antis and Tyrone Area School Districts canceled school for the second consecutive day. The districts originally had called for a two-hour delay today. Officials eventually decided to cancel classes for the entire day.
The Associated Press reported the second snow storm to hit the Northeast in less than a week snarled traffic and caused numerous school and flight cancellations along the East Coast.
The storm dumped moderate to heavy snowfall from Massachusetts to North Carolina and lingered as flurries early Tuesday across the region. As much as 10 inches was recorded in New York.
In North Carolina, the storm shut down schools and businesses and knocked out power to thousands of customers, while also reviving ski slopes that have been barren much of the winter.
“This is sort of the winter we haven’t been having,” said Brad Moretz, general manager of Appalachian Ski Mountain. “March will exceed our expectations. This weekend we’ll have good weather and good slope conditions.”
In Newark, Shajuan Carter of Irvington stood outside Penn Station and pined for sunnier days. “I’m ready for it to be hot out,” she said. “I’m tired of the cold already.”
Across most of Massachusetts, snowfall ranged from 6 to 11 inches, with some of the heaviest amounts in the southeastern part of the state. Western Massachusetts got lighter snow amounts of mostly less than 6 inches.
“We’ve seen the worst of it,” Walter Drag, a forecaster at the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass., said early Tuesday.
In New York, La Guardia International Airport reported 115 cancellations on arriving and departing airplanes Monday. John F. Kennedy International Airport reported two-hour delays, and 59 flight cancellations.
Arriving and departing flights at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport were delayed by up to three hours Monday, and 275 flights in and out of the airport had been canceled by evening.
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On the Net:
National Weather Service: http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov
(Editor’s note: An article written by Associated Press writer Wayne Parry was used to provide the national details on the storm.)

By Rick