The snow goeth, the iceman cometh.
Today should be icy, blowy and slushy after a sneaky nor’easter dumped 4 to 6 inches of snow on the Big Apple yesterday, closing area schools and airports, making driving a nightmare and causing one death.
The storm had been expected to strike offshore, but it unexpectedly moved inland, blanketing the city and its northern suburbs. White Plains got 5.9 inches of snow, Central Park 4.5 inches and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, 6 inches.
Expect slippery driving and walking conditions today: Forecasters say whatever froze on the ground last night will stay that way through the morning commute. But the only new snow will be scattered showers.
“There should be freezing conditions when people are coming in to work, so they should be very careful,” Mayor Giuliani warned.
The nor’easter was “pretty impressive,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Peter Wichrowski.
But the city was ready. An army of 1,400 salt spreaders and 350 snowplows took their positions around midnight and hit the roads when the first flakes began sticking at about 5:30 a.m.
Still, roads in the city were a sea of slush — and they were even worse on Long Island.
Neil Weinstein, a chemist who lives in Roslyn, abandoned efforts to get to work in Huntington.
“The roads were terrible,” he said. “I left at 8 and couldn’t get anywhere. I was going 5 mph and sliding around. I couldn’t even get on the parkway because there were cars slipping everywhere.”
No highway fatalities were reported, but Rocco Marabello, a 58-year-old Staten Island man, suffered a fatal heart attack while shoveling snow outside his home.
La Guardia Airport was closed at 7 a.m., but one of its two runways was reopened at 1:30 p.m. Kennedy and Newark remained open, but many flights were canceled.
Frozen power lines fell in Maspeth, Queens, knocking out power to the main communications center of the Emergency Medical Service. The center switched to a backup generator, and there was no interruption in service.
The city’s 1,100 public schools were open, but only about half the kids showed up — 46 percent in the elementary schools, and 54 percent in junior highs.
Schools were closed in Westchester, where Jake Harris, 15, of Mamaroneck, and a buddy grabbed their shovels and made $95 in two hours by cleaning out driveways.