Northeast cleans up winter storm's mess
• NEW: Traffic death toll from storm rises to 10
• Friday's storm forced cancellation of 1,400 flights
• Weather service cancels warnings as storm fades
• New York works to clean up in time for St. Patrick's parade
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NEW YORK (AP) -- Cleanup crews were out early Saturday to clear snow and ice from Manhattan streets in preparation for the city's St. Patrick's Day parade, a day after a heavy storm buffeted the East Coast.
Friday's weather caused the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights and was being blamed for at least ten traffic deaths, authorities said.
The sleet, snow and freezing rain that pelted the East Coast on Friday had tailed off Saturday as the weather system moved northward.
"We got the whole gamut there," Nelson Vaz, a meteorologist with the weather service, said early Saturday. He called the weather "a pretty impressive late-winter storm."
Eight inches of snow fell at Frostburg, Maryland, with 5 in New York City, and a record 2.13 inches of rain fell at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. Up to 2 feet of snow fell in New York's northern Catskills.
The weather was blamed for at least six traffic deaths in New Jersey, three in Pennsylvania and one in Maryland, authorities said.
Hundreds of traffic accidents were blamed on the icy roads, including one involving a vehicle in President Bush's motorcade traveling from Washington to Camp David, Maryland. No one was injured in that accident.
Hundreds of passengers were stranded for hours overnight on airliners that couldn't take off from John F. Kennedy International Airport because of the storm. (Full story)
JetBlue canceled nearly three-fourths of its scheduled flights on Friday to avoid the criticism and chaos that followed a Valentine's Day storm, when the company was slow to cancel flights and some passengers were stranded in planes for hours. (Watch how Friday cancellations relate to last month's problems )
The airline also called off about 30 flights early Saturday, spokeswoman Jenny Dervin said. But she said JetBlue was expecting few, if any, cancellations after 9 a.m.
American, United, Delta and Continental also canceled flights. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said more than 1,400 flights were canceled Friday at the region's three major airports because of the storm.
At the airport in Newark, New Jersey, Karen Opdyke was trying to get to Miami for a cruise with her husband, three young children and mother after their 9 a.m. flight was canceled.
"We got on the plane, we got off the plane. We got on the plane and off the plane," Opdyke said as she balanced a crying child next to a pile of luggage. She wasn't having any luck rescheduling. "There's nothing available all week." (Watch why airlines had to cancel flights even before weather got bad )
Campaign stops, St. Patrick's Day parades delayed
In New Hampshire, three presidential hopefuls -- Republican John McCain and Democrats Barack Obama and Chris Dodd -- canceled Friday appearances because of the weather. McCain, Dodd and Democrat Joe Biden were campaigning in the state Saturday.
The storm also forced school cancellations throughout the Northeast and prompted some government agencies to send workers home early.
In Hartford, Connecticut, and York, Pennsylvania, officials postponed their annual St. Patrick's Day parades. New York officials expected up to 2 million people to attend the parade there.
Winter officially ends at the vernal equinox Tuesday evening, but climatologists said it was not unusual for storms to arrive well into March.
"Usually you have the biggest storms in March," said meteorologist Kevin Lipton in Albany, New York.
On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that this winter was the warmest worldwide since record keeping began in 1880
