Blizzard Rages Into Northeast : Weather: Region’s first major winter storm gains strength as it moves east. New Englanders warned of approaching rains, wind.

Winter came out of hibernation Saturday, bringing blizzard conditions and a thick layer of snow from West Virginia to New England.

“This is impossible to keep up with,” said Pat Rodgers of the Transportation Department in Connecticut, where two to three inches an hour of snow fell, leaving a foot in Milford and 11 inches in New Canaan.

About 9,000 customers in the state were without power by late afternoon.

The East’s first major storm of the season started Friday in the Midwest and gained strength as it moved east and pounded the mid-Atlantic states overnight with heavy snow, winds up to 40 m.p.h. and low wind chills.

It dumped four inches of snow over much of Indiana and Illinois before blanketing the nation’s capital with six inches. Eleven inches fell in Baltimore County, Md., and up to 14 inches buried the Philadelphia suburbs. Ten inches covered the West Virginia mountains and up to 16 inches fell in central New Jersey.

Heavy snow accumulation was also reported in metropolitan Boston by noon, and forecasters said the problem would worsen before the storm ended by late afternoon.

They predicted the snow in New England would be followed by rain, high winds and increasingly cold temperatures, which would make travel even more difficult overnight.

The storm arrived during a so-far mild winter in the East--a sharp contrast to last year, when about 17 storms dropped 50-plus inches of snow.

Forecasters had given plenty of advance warning about the storm, prompting frenzied shoppers to jam area supermarkets Friday to stock up on food. Authorities in many cities contracted for additional snowplows to battle the storm.

Nevertheless, thousands of air passengers were stranded either at home or in airport terminals.

Travel snafus were lessened because the storm hit on a weekend, but flights were delayed or canceled up and down the East Coast.

New York’s La Guardia and John F. Kennedy International airports were closed early Saturday, but by early afternoon one of JFK’s four runways and one of La Guardia’s two runways were operational.

New Jersey’s Newark International Airport remained open but had limited arrival and departure service.

Air traffic was snarled at Philadelphia International Airport, although it also remained open, officials said.

Boston’s Logan International Airport was closed early Saturday afternoon but was expected to open later in the day. Ten flights had been diverted to Logan earlier from airports farther south, said an airport spokeswoman.

In and around the nation’s capital, Dulles, National and Baltimore-Washington International airports were open Saturday, but BWI was operating only one of its four runways, an airport spokeswoman said.

Officials warned of long flight delays and cancellations and advised passengers to call first before attempting to drive to airports.