Spring Snow Blankets Upper Northeast

Thursday, April 5th 2007, 10:00 am

By: News On 6

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) _ A spring storm brought more than a foot of snow to parts of the upper Northeast, closing schools, tangling traffic and knocking out power to more than 100,000 homes and businesses on Thursday.

At least one death was blamed on the wintry weather, which was expected to continue through the weekend.

By early Thursday, areas of Maine already had nearly a foot and a half of wet, heavy snow, and central New Hampshire saw 16 inches in spots. Up to a foot fell in Vermont, and upstate New York had several inches as well.

The spring snow followed a winter that was often unusually warm.

``We had Easter on December 25th. People had crocuses coming out and blooms on bushes. And now we have Christmas, with all this snow,'' said meteorologist Butch Roberts of the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine. ``It's a little topsy-turvy sometimes.''

Utility crews worked through the night and into Thursday trying to restore electricity to more than 80,000 homes and businesses in New Hampshire after the snow took down tree limbs _ and power lines.

Damage was widespread, and there was no estimate of when electricity might be restored, said Martin Murray, spokesman for Public Service Company of New Hampshire.

Central Maine Power reported that more than 24,000 customers without electricity, mainly in the Alfred area, and Vermont had about 1,300 outages.

The heavy, wet snow clogged roads early Thursday, prompting school officials to cancel or delay classes around the region.

A man was killed in New Hampshire when his car ran off Interstate 93 and hit a tree during the storm Wednesday night on the Canterbury-Concord line, state police said.

A tractor-trailer carrying oxygen bottles skidded and rolled over Wednesday night on the Everett Turnpike in Merrimack. Bottles rolled out, and it took crews all night to clear the road, though none of the bottles broke. The driver was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

Cars were also reported off the road in Maine, and police said a traffic death Wednesday on a slippery road in Topsham may have been weather-related.