This early?

Rare Halloween weekend Nor’easter drops more than a foot of snow on area At this time of year, people often use the phrase “frost on the pumpkin” to denote autumn turning into winter and the necessity to prepare for the approaching cold weather. But never “snow on the pumpkin.” Yet snowed covered pumpkins were the unexpected surprise this past weekend, even though long range Accuweather forecasters were correct on Oct. 24, when they reported a conflict between two weather modeling computers with a European weather modeling computer indicating a potential “snow event” due to significantly colder temperatures later in the week. Some snow event. Cancellations More than a foot of the heavy white snow was documented in the area, with villages like Monroe and Harriman getting national exposure on CNN simply for the amount of snow which had accumulated in the area. That also meant homeowners were quickly getting snow blowers in place and independent contractors were racing to get plows on their trucks on Saturday. Hundreds of cancellations of Halloween-related events took place around Monroe, Woodbury and Tuxedo, leaving parents to spontaneously come up with creative ways to eliminate their kids’ disappointment about the loss of parties, festivals and parades and excite them about the reality of a white Halloween The first jumbo-sized flakes began falling about noon on Saturday, and by evening, many must have thought it was February, not October. Photos of the trees still brimming with autumnal leaves, but burdened with drooping branches laced with heavy snow, surfaced on the social networking site Facebook, along with cheeky reincarnations of Christmas song titles: “I’m Dreaming of a White Halloween” “Walking in a Winter Pumpkinland” “It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Halloween” Serious road conditions But on the serious side, when the novelty subsided and reality set up, many area residents found themselves coping with electrical outages, down trees, broken tree limbs, motor vehicle accidents and an overall mess they hadn’t expected. Repair and road crews can still be seen this week working on fixing down wires and continuing with tree removal efforts. The sunny skies on Sunday played a deceptive role in conditions. And on Monday morning, the Tuxedo School District cancelled classes due to down power lines — making many roads impassable — with the Monroe-Woodbury School District sending 5 a.m. automated calls to teachers and parents alerting them to a two-hour delayed opening. “I’m always worried when it snows early in the year, but I’m especially worried when it snows in October,” said Tuxedo School District Superintendent Carol Lomascolo, who has been officially appointed to the post by the Tuxedo Board of Education. “The weather has been crazy. This was a surprise.” This year, the Tuxedo School District has increased the number of snow days it has, from three to now five. In Monroe-Woodbury, Superintendent Edward Mehrhof said he knew many districts in Rockland, Westchester and Bergen counties had already announced a two hour delay or had closed on Sunday evening. “I knew we’d be okay to open, it was just a question of when,” he said, noting North Main Elementary lost power for part of Sunday. “The two-hour delay was for safety reasons. We knew there were a lot of down branches. It might be easy for a car to get around under them, but not so for a bus. We wanted all our buses out in daylight so the drivers could see well.”