1st day of spring ushers in snow, freezing temps

Winslow Townson / AP

A pedestrian walks through the campus of Phillips Academy during a winter storm in Andover, Mass., on Tuesday, March 19. Winter went out with a blast in the Northeast on Tuesday, snow and sleet closing schools in some areas and making roads an icy, slippery mess a day before spring starts.

By Elizabeth Chuck, Staff Writer, NBC News

The first day of spring didn't feel very spring-like for many Americans.

With snow totals topping 16 inches in parts of New England and temperatures only forecast to reach the teens in parts of the Midwest, Wednesday was decidedly wintry, regardless of the date of the calendar.

Snow and sleet slammed the Northeast, with lingering snowfall on Wednesday leaving 7 inches in winter-weary Boston, according to weather.com. Parts of New Hampshire saw 16 inches; Maine got a foot.

Nina Walker, who lives in the Boston suburb of Woburn, told The Associated Press she shoveled about 8 inches of snow off her driveway on Tuesday. Having lived in New England her whole life, she said late-season snowstorms were fine -- but only until 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."

Read more from weather.com?

?Temperatures battled to get out of the single-digits in Minnesota, reported KARE11.com, an?NBC affiliate in Minneapolis-St. Paul. It was the coldest start to spring for Minneapolis in 48 years, the station said.

?In Michigan, 15 inches of snow were reported, which included both lake-effect snow and snow from the same system that had made its way to the Northeast,?weather.com said.

One to six inches more were possible in Michigan and Wisconsin -- which got 11 inches in the north-central part of the state -- and one to three inches were forecast for northern Indiana and northeast Ohio, which were already pummeled by freezing rain and ice this week.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/20/17386755-has-spring-really-sprung-snow-chilly-temps-make-it-hard-to-believe?lite

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