Storm Paints a Pretty Scene That Belies Its Fierce Nature

A heavy Christmas Eve snowstorm swept from the Texas Panhandle through the Great Plains and up into New England, delighting kids but delaying holiday travelers -- and coating roads across the region with treacherous slicks that caused several fatal accidents.

The severe weather has been blamed for at least 12 deaths since Monday, five of them in Missouri. As it moved northeast, the storm slowed air and road travel across a broad sweep of the country.

On the bright side, 11-year-old Michelle Scott got to spend the day pelting her little brothers with snowballs and careening down her backyard hill in suburban Ballwin, Mo.

“It was awesome!” she said, stepping inside to warm up before a second round.

Not content with such pedestrian wintertime pursuits, Pat Huckaby’s grandson invented a game of snow basketball in Amarillo, Texas, where drifts 6 inches deep buried his driveway. “I think it was just a good excuse to fall down a lot and roll around in it,” Huckaby said.

The storm gave some parts of the country, especially in Oklahoma and Kansas, their first white Christmas in years. In places, it was hard to see the holiday lights through the falling flakes as snow draped every tree limb and roofline.

“It’s beautiful,” sighed Bob Westfall, owner of the Bradford Inn in Branson, Mo. “You should be here.”

Only the bravest of drivers could take his advice, however. His parking lot, he said, was 9 inches under. “It’s pretty well got everyone slowed down to nothing, I’d say.”

Accumulation totals around the country ranged from 6 inches in Tulsa, Okla., to 11 inches in Springfield, Mo. Here in St. Louis, where the snow came down heavily for eight hours, then tapered into flurries, forecasters predicted up to 9 inches would settle on the ground by this morning.

The storm system that created the winter wonderland kicked off its cross-country tour by pelting Southern California with heavy rains. Picking up strength as it moved northeast, it dropped 10 inches of snow in Clovis, N.M., on Monday -- although most of that was melting away in Tuesday’s sun.

At least enough of it melted to get procrastinating Santas back on the road. “We’re packed,” reported Michelle Chavez, a Wal-Mart clerk in Clovis. “Lots of last-minute shoppers.”

The storm is expected to move off the New England coast later today, but not before it hits upstate New York with a wallop, said meteorologist Jeremy Nelson of Weather Central Inc.

Officials at Albany International Airport in upstate New York lined up cots in the concourse as snow began to fall Tuesday afternoon, anticipating accumulation of up to 20 inches by Christmas Day.

Those in the storm’s white wake, meanwhile, spent Tuesday trying to figure how to handle the shoveling and still enjoy a laid-back holiday. Gaye Brown, a Tulsa real estate agent, came up with the perfect plot: She planned to give her nephew the blue-and-yellow skateboard of his dreams -- then point out that he couldn’t take it for a test spin until he cleared the snow off the driveway.

Driving through a light snowfall with drifts up to 9 inches high on either side of the road, Brown chuckled.

“This sure is fun,” she said.