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By Ellen Wulfhorst
 NEW
YORK (Reuters) - New Yorkers awoke to find themselves under
a blanket of snow on Saturday, as the season's first major
storm skirted the nation's capital but left accumulations
of several inches around the U.S. northeast with more predicted
throughout the day.
Heavy
snow began to fall early in the morning along the Eastern
Seaboard, leaving six inches of snow in New York City's
Central Park by late morning, the National Weather Service
said.
The
storm was moving north, hitting Philadelphia and New York
City and expected to hit New England hard later in the day,
forecasters said.
``It
developed with a vengeance,'' said Mike Wyllie, a spokesman
for the National Weather Service in Brookhaven, N.Y.
``We've
got a couple of inches on the east end of Long Island (New
York) to over nine inches at the west end, and six inches
in New York City,'' he said.
``The
city will have 10 to 16 inches, while Connecticut and western
Massachusetts will get over a foot, easy,'' he added. ''It's
a major storm.''
LaGuardia
and Newark International airport were closed while Kennedy
only has one runway open.
Even
before the airports closed, American Airlines canceled all
their flights at Kennedy, and many of their flights at LaGuardia,
said Alan Hicks, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey which oversees the area's airports.
Delta
had canceled all its flights into New York airports until
noon Saturday, according to a taped message from a spokeswoman.
And Trans Word Airlines had also canceled all its flights
into LaGuardia and JFK airports.
``We
already have 7 inches of snow,'' said TWA spokeswoman Julia
Bishop. ``The storm came earlier than we expected.''
TWA
also grounded all its flights at the three major Washington
airports because of predictions of heavy snowfall. Washington
got no snow and flights were expected to resume at 6 p.m.,
said Bishop
``It
was forecast to be a lot of snow,'' the spokeswoman said.
''So in anticipation of the snow, we canceled the flights
for today.''
Advance
word of the coming storm meant that many would-be travelers
stayed home rather than head to the airports.
``The
word has gotten out that people can call ahead, and most
people have done that,'' Hicks said.
Employees
at New York's regional airports were armed with new high-speed
plows and snow melters, while in the city, workers were
ready with 1,400 snowplows and 353 salt-spreading machines.
The
storm had been expected to land earlier in Washington, D.C.,
but skirted the nation's capital on its way north.
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