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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Mid-Atlantic region avoided the brunt of a powerful winter storm that pounded parts of the Northeast.
Snowfalls in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore fell short of predictions, with about 1 inch each by Tuesday. Washington had been predicted to see up to 4 inches, and Baltimore had been expected to get up to 6 inches.
"We got a glancing blow," said Jim Lee, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
The rest of Maryland and Delaware also saw lower-than-predicted snow totals. National Weather Service data shows that the most that fell in Maryland was in Germantown in suburban Washington, at 4.5 inches. Fairfax in northern Virginia got 4.3 inches.
Most of Delaware saw barely an inch of snow, when up to 10 inches had been predicted.
Many school districts in the region closed Tuesday because of lingering snow showers and slick roads, and hundreds of flights were canceled in and out of the area's three major airports.
Eric Moran, a 20-year-old oil industry worker from Swedesboro, New Jersey, was sleep-deprived but cheerful after a series of delayed and re-routed flights brought him to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Tuesday morning.
Moran said he left Wichita Falls, Texas, early Monday afternoon but his connecting flight from Dallas to Philadelphia was canceled. American Airlines put him on a flight to Chicago and another to Baltimore, which arrived around 1 a.m. Tuesday.
New Jersey officials had imposed highway travel restrictions because of the storm, so Moran asked his friend to wait until Tuesday to make the nearly 80-mile drive from southern New Jersey to the airport to take him home.
"I'm not paying a penny for another flight," Moran said. "And I'll be honest, I am tired of flying."
Aimee Medonos of Falls Church in northern Virginia had her kids with her on a grocery run Tuesday, when otherwise they would have been in school or day care.
Fairfax County Public Schools, the largest school district in Virginia, has had numerous closings and delays the last few weeks, leading to criticism from parents who think the school system has been too quick to pull the trigger on closures.
"I think they've been overcautious but I also think they're in a no-win situation," she said. "I wouldn't want to be the one who makes the call."
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