A very white Christmas in US

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP, Reuters) – A fierce weekend storm dropped record snowfall and stranded travelers up the coast from Virginia to New England, but its timing helped minimize headache-inducing work commutes and left many with the prospect of a very white Christmas.
Residents throughout the mid-Atlantic and Northeast mostly holed up for the weekend, then dug out from as much as two feet of snow to find sunny, mostly calm skies under a blanket of white unspoiled by car exhaust and passers-by.
The US Northeast was blasted by a massive snowstorm that buried cities from Washington to Boston under snow, creating travel chaos and hampering Christmas shopping.
Federal government agencies will be closed on Monday as the US capital continues to emerge from the snow.
Washington-area airports were hit with significant delays and cancellations, as were New York's three metropolitan airports, which remained opened. Airlines canceled hundreds of flights, with few planes either arriving or departing.
The driving snowstorm did not stop the US Senate from convening and working on legislation to reform US healthcare.
Nearly two feet of snow piled up in the Baltimore-Washington area on Saturday in the largest snowstorm to hit the region since February 2003, while New York City saw totals of up to a foot before the monster storm churned into New England.
Boston, Cape Cod and southeastern Massachusetts areas saw as much as two feet of snow before the storm moved out to sea. Areas of eastern Long Island had blizzard-like conditions and nearly two feet of precipitation.
The storm gave Washington its snowiest December on record, said Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Seidel.
Matthew Laquinta was vindicated by the 15 inches of snow outside his Providence home, where his daughter Emma, 7, didn't believe the night before that the weather might keep them from visiting relatives on Sunday.
Nevertheless, they still planned to make the two-hour trek to visit family in Massachusetts.
To the south, others struggled with the aftermath of the storm that stranded hundreds of motorists in Virginia and knocked out power to thousands, but could have been much worse.
On the cusp of the winter solstice, the storm dropped 16 inches of snow Saturday on Reagan National Airport outside Washington — the most ever recorded there for a single December day — and gave southern New Jersey its highest single-storm snowfall totals in nearly four years.
The National Weather Service said the storm gave Philadelphia, which began keeping records in 1884, its second-largest snowfall: 23.2 inches. Even more was recorded in the Philadelphia suburb of Medford, New Jersey, at 24 inches.
The 13.4 inches that fell Sunday at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, just south of Providence, easily eclipsed the date's previous record — 6.3 inches in 1995, according to the National Weather Service.
Around New York City, the brunt of the storm hit Long Island, with whiteout conditions and 26.3 inches in Upton, a record since measurements began in 1949. Nearly 11 inches of snow fell on New York City, and the storm could be the worst the city has seen since about 26 inches fell in February 2006, National Weather Service meteorologist Patrick Maloit said.
Pragmatic New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg encouraged residents and holiday visitors to take advantage of cancellations by seeing a Broadway show. The mayor said city retailers weren't hard hit because the snow held off until late Saturday.
Even as the storm wound down in the New York area, conditions remained treacherous and drivers were advised to stay off the roads, Maloit said. Bus, subways and trains were delayed.
Airports in the Northeast that were jammed up Saturday were working their way back to normal operations.
About 1,200 flights at the New York City area's three major airports remained canceled.
Baltimore-Washington airport struggled to get back up to full speed, with some airlines still canceling flights. At Boston's Logan airport, where it was still snowing Sunday morning, spokesman Phil Orlandella said flights have been "on and off." Monday looked to be a normal day, he said.
Philadelphia International Airport shut down Saturday night but reopened early Sunday.
The School District of Philadelphia and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia canceled classes for 195,000 public school and Roman Catholic school students to give the city another day to clear roads and sidewalks.