BOSTON -- New Englanders were preparing for another messy day of snow as they welcomed spring's unseasonable arrival.

Forecasts called for as much as 16 inches of snow in parts of northern New England through Wednesday morning, bringing slippery road conditions. Snow was expected to taper off in other locations.

"It's the real deal — the heavy, wet snow," said National Weather Service forecaster John Cannon in Gray, Maine. "Travel will be treacherous into the early morning hours."

Snow and sleet blasted the Northeast on Tuesday, where some places received over a foot of snow. Classes were canceled in some districts in Massachusetts, Connecticut and upstate New York, adding a few more snow days to the calendar.

Snow also socked other parts of the northern U.S., with as much as 2 feet forecast in parts of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Icy roads caused numerous auto accidents. In Marlborough, Mass., the Harlem Globetrotters' bus collided with a car on Interstate 290, but no one was hurt and the bus was able to drive away, the state police said. No citations were issued.

There was nothing unusual about a snowstorm in the Northeast this late in the season, when it can still get plenty cold.

"They don't happen all the time, but it's not, you know, unheard of," said Alan Dunham, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass.

Nina Walker, of Woburn in suburban Boston, said she had to shovel about 8 inches of snow off her driveway before driving to Boston's South Station to take a train to New York. As a lifelong New Englander, she takes the snow in stride, but draws the line at storms after March 31.

"Once I hear the word 'April,' I am really offended when I hear the word 'snow,'" she said. "So this is OK today, but a couple of weeks from now, it had better not happen."

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Severe storms, large hail cause extensive damage in South

This story was originally published on Wed Mar 20, 2013 5:13 AM EDT

A late-season storm that threatened to dump up to a foot of heavy snow right before the start of spring slammed the Northeast on Tuesday.

The storm brought a burst of heavy snow in southern New England that was replaced by a mix of sleet and freezing rain in Connecticut and Rhode Island through the morning, the National Weather Service said.

About seven inches had accumulated in parts of Boston by 9 a.m. local time, NBC affiliate WHDH reported. School was canceled in Boston and Worcester, Mass., and residents could expect a mix of rain and snow through Tuesday night, tapering off into flurries on Wednesday morning, according to the weather service.

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With the official arrival of spring only a day away, New Englanders said they had seen enough snow for one winter.

“I hate it,” Jennifer Hutchins of Concord, N.H., told The Associated Press. “I guess I like to watch it fall, but I don’t like it when it sticks around.”

Rogelio V. Solis / AP

Golf-ball sized hail litters the ground as Andrew Stamps and his wife Valorie prepare to cover their car's rear window after the glass was shattered in a hailstorm on Monday in Pearl, Miss.

"I'm tired of it," Paula Lochhead told the AP. "But we live in New Hampshire, what are you gonna do?"

A FedEx truck slid off ice-slicked roads in Wallingford, Conn., and narrowly missed slamming into a house as it went down an embankment. The driver of the truck was not seriously harmed, NBC Connecticut reported.

Snow also hit New York and New Jersey on Monday night, with reports of a number of accidents as drivers tried to negotiate slushy streets, according to NBC New York.

Some three inches of snow fell on parts of New York City and Long Island before it stopped around midnight, the station said. Suburbs north and west of the city could see 3 to 5 inches before rain sets in. Up to 8 inches were expected at higher elevations in the Poconos, Catskills and Hudson Valley.

Hail smashes cars, breaks windows in South

New York state police said they had responded to 80 reports of accidents or disabled vehicles in a four-county region east of the Hudson River, NBC New York reported.

Forty-eight flights were cancelled at Boston’s Logan Airport and 29 grounded at LaGuardia in New York as of 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Severe storms, large hail pummel parts of South

This story was originally published on Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:48 AM EDT

March may go out like a lamb, but it promises to be a lion for the next few days for a huge strip of the country.

A late-season winter storm is predicted to bring snow, ice and even blizzard conditions from the Northern Plains to the New England coast and as far south as the nation's capital.

Wednesday is the first day of spring, but try telling that to people in the affected areas. 

The National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings for large parts of the Dakotas and Minnesota as winds gusted at 50 mph and snow started piling up late Sunday and early Monday.

Traffic could be snarled in urban centers, especially the Twin Cities, and things might not be much better in Chicago, where just a bit of snow is forecast but freezing rain threatens to bedevil Monday morning commuters.

The wintry mess will spread across the northern Great Lakes region and into the Northeast later Monday and into Tuesday, according to Weather.com.

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Most of Wisconsin is under a winter weather advisory, while lake-effect snows are expected in western Michigan. Across the southern Great Lakes, including Cleveland and much of northern Ohio, as well as parts of western Pennsylvania, snow is expected to be followed by freezing rain throughout much of Monday, potentially causing traffic tie-ups throughout the region, according to NBCChicago.com said.

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Much of the same is possible as far south as Washington, D.C. Its far western, northern and southern suburbs in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia were under winter storm warnings and advisories through Monday evening.

Much of the heavily populated Northeast Corridor looks to escape the worst of the snow, but freezing rain and some snow could complicate travel in New York, NBCNewYork.com warned.

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Boston lies just to the east of the weather service winter storm warning area, but much of New England doesn't look likely to be spared the storm.

Most of northern New England was under winter storm warning into Tuesday -- and through Wednesday for much of Maine -- with forecasters predicting up to 14 inches of snow and winds gusting at 25 to 30 mph from Western New York to the Maine coast.

This story was originally published on Mon Mar 18, 2013 5:32 AM EDT

Terry Prather / AP

Snow falls early Sunday, March 17, 2013, as an Amish family travels to church services near Maysville, Ky.

A pair of storm systems that were moving across the country on Sunday could join forces to bring snow to the Northeast — even as the official start of spring approaches next week.

One storm was spreading snow showers from the Cascades and northern Rockies into the northern Plains and was expected to bring snow to the Dakotas, Minnesota and western Wisconsin tonight, the Weather Channel said.

There was also a chance of snow in West Virgina, southwest Pennsylvania and northwestern Virginia Sunday night, according to meteorologists.

Another storm system was moving over the Ohio Valley Sunday and was expected to continue moving east, joining the northern system to produce a "fairly potent storm off the New England coast Tuesday," the Weather Channel said.

In addition, severe thunderstorms were in Monday's forecast from southern Ohio down into Kentucky, Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and northeast Texas.

Snow was expected to close in on parts of the Northeast as the work week gets underway. The Weather Channel said the best chance for accumulating snow and freezing rain was in New England and other interior sections of the Northeast.

Snow is also possible on the I-95 corridor from Washington to Philadelphia Sunday night and from New York to Boston Monday night.

The National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration called for a chance of rain in New York City Monday, with showers also forecast for Tuesday. NOAA also forecasted snow early Tuesday morning in Boston, but little accumulation is expected as the precipitation turns to sleet and rain during the day.

Wednesday marks the first official day of spring.

AP Photo/David Zalubowski

An overhead sign warns that Interstate 70 is closed to the east as a tractor trailer heads out of Aurora, Colo., as a late winter storm packing wet, heavy snow and high winds swept over the intermountain West on Saturday, March 9, 2013.

A powerful storm dumped snow on the Rocky Mountains on Sunday, after having forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights and the postponement of a Major League Soccer game. 

The fierce Pacific storm was moving east across the Plains into the Midwest, and blizzard conditions were possible in parts of Nebraska and northwest Kansas, The Weather Channel reported.

Forecasters also said that parts of the region could expect wind gusts of up to 50-miles-an-hour and white out conditions.

Meteorologists said there could be accumulations of 3 to 6 inches in portions of Iowa, Minnesota, central Wisconsin and northern Michigan as well on Sunday.

The late-winter blast has already dumped up to 10 inches of heavy, wet snow in the Denver metropolitan area, The Weather Channel reported.

More than 600 flights in and out of Denver International Airport were canceled on Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

"Many of the canceled flights are commuter flights that go to mountain towns," airport spokesman Heath Montgomery told Reuters, adding that the facility remained open.

Related: How deep is it? Show us your snow photos #nbcnewspics

Looking ahead, passengers could expect delays of up to 30 minutes as crews de-iced departing aircraft, he said, according to Reuters. 

The Colorado Rapids postponed their Major League Soccer game against the Philadelphia Union until Sunday, the team said on its website. 

And as the storm moves farther east, rain is expected to move into western New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia on Monday, the Weather Channel reported.

Brennan Linsley / AP

A man walk struggles to walk as blizzard conditions set in at the U.S. Air Force Academy, in southern Colorado on Saturday.

A winter storm was expected to bring up to a foot of snow to parts of New England on Friday.

Forecasters said Boston could get up to 6 inches of snow and New York as much as 3 inches. Interior Massachusetts could be hit harder — up to 12 inches.

The system was expected to hang out through Saturday morning.

"We are watching a conveyor belt of wave after wave of snow coming in over the Atlantic," Alan Dunham, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service told the AP. "The morning commute will definitely be a challenge," he added, especially for those headed into Boston from the south.

NBC Connecticut warned that "isolated power outages are possible from the combination of wet snow accumulating on trees and power lines and gusty winds."

"Late Friday into Friday night, the storm will finally shift out to sea with impacts limited to lingering breezy winds along the Northeast coast by Saturday morning," according to weather.com.

Parts of the Jersey shore, still struggling to recover from superstorm Sandy, were dealing with a new bout of flooding on Thursday. 

Pounding surf broke through a temporary dune in Mantoloking during the early-morning high tide, sending water flowing onto a section of Route 35, which was closed for several hours.

New Jersey's Department of Transportation, Mantoloking's public works crews and contractors on Thursday were scooping and pushing sand back into the breach.

"They're trying to keep the dune system intact," Police Chief Mark Wright told the AP. 

Other shore towns also had trouble with flooding, including Sea Bright, where firefighters put out a blaze in a vacant commercial building sparked by a downed power line.

Steven Senne / AP

Ocean waves crash over a seawall and into houses along the coast in Scituate, Mass., on Thursday.

Along the Massachusetts coast, which was hammered by a blizzard four weeks ago, people braced for surging seas. Homeowners were encouraged to evacuate. Photos showed two-story-high waves crashing against seawalls.

“We still have remnants of the last storm in the yard,” Paula Polasky, who lives in the coastal town of Scituate, told NBC station WHDH in Boston before packing up and leaving. “I’m not going to take any chances this time.”

Parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio woke up to as much as 6 inches of snow Thursday, with the possibility of more in the Philadelphia suburbs into Friday, NBC Philadelphia reported.

The system was a no-show in Washington, where predictions of the worst snowfall in two years came to nothing more than a slushy annoyance. It was far more impressive to the west: Parts of Virginia got 20 inches of snow.

People in the nation's capital didn’t even need to break out snow shovels after the storm left only a scattering of flakes.

Federal offices closed, schools were shut and Congress postponed hearings on Wednesday as the city braced for what people online dubbed Snowquester, after the automatic budget cuts known as the sequester.

“They just say that it might snow and the whole city shuts down,” Sheri Sable told The Associated Press as she walked her dogs in a slight drizzle in Washington on Thursday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Slideshow: Snow blankets Midwest, heads east

Jim Mone / AP

A storm system stretching from the Dakotas to the Florida Panhandle is predicted to bring snow to the mid-Atlantic states.

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Snowstorm misses Washington, pounds areas west of nation's capital

This story was originally published on Thu Mar 7, 2013 7:07 AM EST

The biggest winter storm to hit the Chicago area in two years may have proved too much for a northwest suburban banquet hall.

A portion of the roof of Cafe La Cave in Des Plaines caved in just before 1 p.m. Tuesday. Snow poured into one wing of the building as the roof gave way overnight, leaving a gaping hole at the banquet hall's southwest corner.  

Des Plaines Fire Department officials said no one was in the building at the time, and no injuries were reported. The building department is scheduled to inspect the structure Wednesday.

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The banquet hall, located not far from O'Hare International Airport, is a family owned business that hosts weddings as well as a big Easter brunch.

Cafe La Cave owner Kim Sutter said the roof collapsed over their Baby Grand Ballroom.

Owenr Gus Sutter said a graduation dinner celebration for Worsham College for 300 people was planned for Wednesday night.

"Thank God there wasn't an event going on," Gus Sutter said. "[The roof] is just a thing. A thing that can be replaced."