NORTHEAST HIT WITH FOURTH STORM IN 3 WEEKS

NEW YORK Spring kicked off with a wallop of wintry weather along the East Coast as the fourth nor’easter in three weeks rolled in with the potential for a foot or more of snow Wednesday.

The first full day of the season included scenes of snow falling on blooming daffodils in suburban Philadelphia, New Yorkers twisting to fix blown-out umbrellas, tractortrailers stuck on snowy highways and kids making their first snowman of spring.

“I want warm! I’m done with the cold,” said Yana Damoiseau, a pedestrian in New York City.

Airlines cancelled thousands of flights, and school districts throughout the Northeast called off classes ahead of the storm, which was expected to intensify in the afternoon and make its way into New England, with heavy, wet snow likely to knock out power across a wide area.

New York City braced for what could be its biggest March snowstorm ever. Gov. Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency in New Jersey.

On the other side of the country, a storm brought heavy rain to California, and tens of thousands of people in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties were ordered to flee their homes because of the danger of mudslides on slopes burned by recent wildfires.