NEW YORK (AP) -- Up to a foot of snow Friday interrupted what had been a mild winter in much of the Northeast and created havoc for travelers, forcing the cancellation of more than 1,100 flights in the New York area alone.
Jane Kratochvil photographed a cloud-shrouded Brooklyn Bridge as snowstorms moved into New York on Friday.
Roads were slick throughout the region and there were hundreds of accidents, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged people to look on the bright side.
"The timing is perfect, if you think about it," he said. "We'll have the whole weekend to clean up the mess."
If that didn't cheer up his constituents, the mayor also announced that free hot chocolate and free sled rentals were available Friday at one park in each of the city's five boroughs. 
Half a foot of snow fell in New York City. Up to a foot was forecast in suburban counties, and up to 9 inches fell in parts of Connecticut. Storm warnings extended northward across Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. In many places, snow was changing over to rain, sometimes freezing rain.
The storm was not unusual for mid-February, but it was easily the New York area's most significant storm of the winter. The expansive system, which had brought everything from freezing rain to sleet to snow in parts of Kentucky, Missouri and Illinois on Thursday, lumbered eastward and northward overnight.
In Missouri, where the problem was mostly ice rather than snow, the State Highway Patrol cited slippery roads as factors in accidents that killed five people Thursday and early Friday.
By mid-afternoon Friday there were 548 flight cancellations at New York's LaGuardia Airport, 368 at Newark Liberty International Airport and 197 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, said Steve Coleman, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
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Delays at the three airports ranged from one to three hours. In Philadelphia the average arriving flight was 4½ hours late. Some airlines waived their fee for passengers rebooking tickets.
The storm's impact was felt far from New York, as airports around the country were hamstrung by canceled incoming flights.
"There are no weather problems in Kansas City today, but if that plane from New York to Kansas City is five hours late, then that flight out of Kansas City has no plane," said AccuWeather meteorologist Tom Kines.
Driving was no more fun than flying. The speed limit along the New Jersey Turnpike was reduced to 35 mph, and jackknifed rigs shut down southbound lanes of Interstate 95 for a couple of hours in Greenwich, Connecticut. One man in Connecticut and two others in Ohio were killed in storm-related car crashes.
"I didn't go over 30 mph on the expressway," said Paul May, whose commute on New York's Long Island on Friday took three times as much as normal. "It's very slippery. The roads are treacherous."
Four hours into his route delivering Coca-Cola to Manhattan stores, Anthony Grady unloaded several bottles in front of a convenience store and said, "Normally I would have finished this route in five hours. Now it might take me 10."
The weather was tough on horses, too, so the race card at Aqueduct was canceled.
Times Square was a mess of gray slush by afternoon, but that didn't matter to Sydney Cooper of Kingsport, Tennessee.
"It's great," said Cooper. "We don't get snow in Tennessee, so I prayed for it. I was supposed to leave this morning, but my flight got canceled."
Mark Mathebane, a fashion designer from Brooklyn, was taking it less in stride.
"I hate the snow," he said. "It dirties your shoes, especially when they throw salt on the ground. Salt destroys leather."
In New Haven, Connecticut, the snow forced Yale graduate student Andrew Goldstone to take cover under an overhang while waiting for a campus bus. Not that he was complaining.
"I'm glad to see it, finally, after such a bland, wet, warmish winter," he said. "This is the kind of weather that I love, which I've been waiting for. Of course, I don't have to drive in it."
Romeo Simeone, who owns a market in New Haven said there had been a run on bread, eggs and other staples a day earlier, but the market was still plenty busy Friday with people ducking in for coffee and sandwiches.
"We got to accept a little weather. It's a little uncomfortable, but look at the beauty of it," he said. "Everybody is smiling, everybody is happy, especially the kids."
Up to 8 inches were expected in New Hampshire's ski country, which unlike areas to the south has seen a winter full of white.
