By Lori Aratani and Daniel De Vise
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, January 22, 2007; B01
The latest first snowstorm in more than a decade swept through the Washington region yesterday, delighting fans of winter but causing havoc on the highways and threatening to make this morning's commute an ordeal of slipping and sliding.
By late evening, most of the snow had pushed eastward out of the heart of the area, but it was replaced by a cold drizzle that quickly froze on many roads.
"It's pretty much ice out there," a staff member at Arlington County's police and fire communications center said.
"It's definitely slippery," said a Maryland State Police sergeant in Prince George's County. He said most of the traffic mishaps were occurring around bridges and ramps, which usually are the first to freeze and last to melt.
Early today, the National Weather Service said it expected freezing drizzle and freezing rain to persist through 2 a.m. in the eastern half of the metropolitan area. Although additional icing would be minor, forecasters said, it would compound the already slippery conditions.
Prince William, Fauquier, Madison, King George, Spotsylvania, Warren and Stafford county schools will be closed today, along with Manassas public schools. In many cases, administrative personnel still must report. Alexandria schools will open two hours late.
Most other school systems said they would decide early today what to do. Students in Montgomery and Howard counties have the day off because it is a professional day for teachers.
The snow, which came relatively late in the season, left accumulations of one to two inches in many places -- not that much, even by Washington standards. However, it delighted those who had been waiting for it. The last time the wait was so long was 1995, when five inches fell Jan. 28.
"Oh man, it's beautiful," said Nicolas Vargas of Wheaton, who broke out into song while buying a scraper at a Kensington hardware store. "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow."
Kera Lagios, on vacation in the District from Boston, declared: "It's freezing. It's snowing. It's the way it should be."
Residents might like the snow, law enforcement officials said, but judging from yesterday, few knew how to drive in it.
Scores of accidents were reported. In the District, police said there were more than 200, mostly minor. In Stafford County, there were more than 100, all minor. In Montgomery, authorities received about 150 calls for highway help between 2 and 6 p.m. Most were for relatively minor wrecks, said fire department spokesman Pete Piringer. Normally, he said, about 375 calls come in over a full day. No fatalities were reported in the immediate Washington area.
Farther out, the Associated Press reported that a Barboursville, Va., woman was killed on Interstate 81 near Winchester, when the southbound vehicle in which she was a passenger lost control on the icy road, crossed the median and hit another vehicle headed north.
In Virginia, the ramp between Interstates 495 north and 66 west was shut down because of icy conditions, and Route 1 between Backlick Road and Fort Belvoir was closed from 3 to 5 p.m. One dispatcher working the phones in Northern Virginia said cars were "sliding around like hockey pucks. . . . There have been more accidents than they have police officers."
"People just don't know how to drive," said Maryland State Police spokesman John McDonough.
Forecasters said today would be overcast, with temperatures in the 40s. Another cold front could bring more rain Wednesday or Thursday with the possibility of snow or sleet.
At Reagan National Airport, Tom Gormley of Arlington said his Atlanta-bound Delta Air Lines flight, scheduled for 5 p.m., was held at the gate with passengers on board for more than four hours waiting to be de-iced.
An airline spokesman said Delta went into "de-icing mode" at National about 5 p.m. and canceled eight flights because of "deteriorating conditions."
He said the Atlanta flight was canceled about 10:30 p.m. after crew members had "timed out," or exceeded permitted work hours. While waiting, he said, passengers had been allowed to leave the airplane.
A spokeswoman for Metro said the agency expected to provide normal service this morning. Some bus detours were possible, depending on conditions, spokeswoman Joanne Ferreira said.
The late first snow is not a new phenomenon, meteorologists said. The first snow of the season has come after Jan. 1 "every eight to 10 years" over the past century, said Steve Rogowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
"But recently, it's happened more," he said, with the first measurable snow coming in January in 2000, 2002 and 2007.
David Buck, a spokesman for the Maryland State Highway Administration, said that despite the mayhem that accompanied yesterday's storm, things could have been worse had it been a weekday.
Officials in the District, Maryland and Virginia were prepared for the weather. By 8 a.m., District officials had more than 140 trucks mobilized to pre-treat roads with de-icing solution and salt. In Maryland, state transportation officials had 1,100 workers activated. In Virginia, state transportation officials had 250 trucks out.
"So far, so good," said Erik Linden, a spokesman for the District's Department of Transportation. "Our crews have been raring to go."
By afternoon, a thin carpet of snow covered Rock Creek Park. A light dusting blanketed cars in downtown. There wasn't a lot of snow, but it was enough to send Tom Cosgrove scurrying to Hardware City in Kensington to buy four new sleds.
"They're on the hill waiting for these," he said of his children and their friends. "There was enough snow that we thought we'd give it a try."
Assistant store manager Jason Schaffer said the store's de-icing pellets -- largely ignored since they were put out in November -- were selling briskly, more than 100 bags by late afternoon, not to mention snow scrapers, gloves and firewood.
Still, there were signs that some folks weren't buying into the snow frenzy.
While others were hitting Hardware City to stock up winter supplies, Eric Eicher of Silver Spring was buying a 20-pound bag of charcoal for a chicken wing barbecue he planned to do on his porch to celebrate the NFC championship.
As recently as Jan. 15, the temperature was a balmy 68. And even as many Washingtonians basked in the warm temperatures, some secretly fretted that something sinister might be afoot, what with all that talk about global warming.
But scientists are mixed on whether the balmy weather is the product of global warming. Some attribute the unusual temperatures to El Niño, a weather phenomenon brought on by warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean. But there have been previous years when there was little to no snowfall, Rogowski said. In 1998, the area received only a half-inch of snow; in 1931, there was only an inch.
The region's last real snowstorm came Feb. 11 and 12, dropping nearly nine inches in Washington and 13 inches in Baltimore.
This storm, and the chilly week that preceded it, broke up an unseasonably warm stretch of summery winter days. December was the 10th warmest on record in Washington, with a stretch of 21 consecutive days of above-normal average temperatures.
In Northwest Washington, Shafiqua Areef said her family had checked the weather before laying out wares at the U street flea market yesterday, but by afternoon, she stood in the middle of a soggy mess, packing up.
"It just came out of nowhere," said Areef, 18, of Springfield. "If we would have known in advance, we wouldn't have come here."
She said she thought the snow wasn't supposed to come until 11 p.m., well after the flea market's 5 p.m. closing. But by 1:30, she and other vendors scrambled to pack up, shoving clothes in plastic bags and antiques in cardboard boxes that were slowly collecting a coat of snow.
For his part, Bill Deegan of Wheaton couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. He wouldn't be seen scurrying off to stock up on toilet paper or de-icing pellets.
"An inch or less, I don't even bother," Deegan said. "People panicking about one inch is ridiculous."
Staff writers Theresa Vargas and Martin Weil contributed to this report.
