Accumulation

The snow fell. But for the most part, it didn't really stick. The Baltimore metropolitan area's first snowfall of the season -- where some predictions called for as much as 6 inches -- fell short of expectations yesterday as most of the precipitation melted upon landing on the roads, sparing many commuters an agonizing drive home during evening rush hour. "I'm not expecting any significant accumulation," said Steven Zubrick, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sterling, Va. "This is the type of early season storm where you get a lot of accumulation in grassy areas.

Bread, milk, toilet tissue . . . lunch meat in case the power goes out . . . salt for the front steps and driveway . . . Darn, the hardware store's run out of shovels.You didn't have to be a mind reader yesterday to fathom the thoughts of many Marylanders as weather forecasters flat-out used the "S" word.No matter of a degree or two of temperature this time, they said: Thermometers will be reading well below freezing tonight, when snow is expected to begin falling in the Baltimore area.From Oakland to Ocean City and St. Mary's City to Rising Sun, the word also was snow.

Forecasters are continuing to model a passing snowfall expected Friday in the Baltimore area, and while odds of significant accumulation are decreasing, the timing could make for a messy end-of-the-week commute home. Meanwhile, a separate system could slicken Thursday morning's commute. Meteorologists have backed off predictions of a wintry mix Friday, with warm air aloft that could have brought sleet instead of snow no longer expected. Any snow that falls will be light and powdery given the frigid temperatures, said Tom Kines, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather.com.

THREE MONTHS have passed since President Bush first announced his decision to send American troops to the Persian Gulf.Forces from a dozen states have now been assembled in and around the region. The president has spoken of sending another 150,000 troops to supplement the 230,000 U.S. forces already there. But not one move has been made to end the devastation and plunder of Kuwait, or to defend its beleaguered people from daily abuse.We may even have lost sight of the reason Mr. Bush sent all those men and all that materiel to the Gulf in the first place.

Paris.--An American presidential inauguration is a coronation for a season. The president is king for four years, eight if he is lucky -- which most recent presidents have not been. The complication of the presidential office has become something close to contradiction, and the crowning of the president has made regicide a republican necessity. Mr. Reagan is the only modern president who has not left office symbolically slain by the people.Truman was the last holder of the office who conducted himself in the old republican way, as an ordinary mortal, rather than as an anointed one. Eisenhower, as a general, was a man of ranks and deference, but still was in the tradition of Washington, who refused the crown many 18th Century Americans wanted him to assume.

In a storm that amazed weather experts, snow and heavy sleet covered nearly all of Maryland yesterday, closing schools, government offices and businesses as salt-short highway workers tried to keep roads passable."

Jim Calhoun should be on the sidelines of a basketball court, coaching the University of Connecticut men's team. Instead, he's been on medical leave for a painful arthritic condition. Calhoun's pain is caused by spinal stenosis, a medical condition that causes narrowing of the spinal column and crowding of the nerves and affects about 1 million people in the United States each year. Dr. Lee H. Riley III, chief of the spine division and associate professor of orthopedic surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, tells us about the symptoms of the disease, who typically gets it and how it is treated.

It was a few days after Christmas when 16-year-old Amanda Custer and her mom made a rare stop for a takeout burger. The indulgence ended badly for Amanda. Soon after, she said, "I felt real nauseous. Food was, like, gross. I got really bad cramps, a whole bunch of heartburn and an upset stomach. " And it didn't go away. "I would feel OK and try to eat something, and then I'd regret it," she recalled. "The pain afterwards was horrible. A couple of hours after I ate, I'd be going to the bathroom, feeling nauseous.

The American Academy of Otolaryngology is urging people not to use cotton swabs to clean their ears. With the public going to the pool or the beach, keeping ears in a "swab-free zone" may be easier said than done. Dr. Howard W. Francis, an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine's Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, explains the purpose of earwax, the potential damage caused by the use of cotton swabs and the safest alternatives for cleaning your ears: * Earwax (cerumen)

This morning's light snowfall came as a surprise to many and snarled the morning commute, and more systems like it could be on the way over the next week, forecasters say. Signs aren't pointing to any major storms, though. National Weather Service forecasters are calling for snow chances Saturday night into early Sunday as well as Monday night through Wednesday, in what the weather service's Baltimore/Washington office is calling an "active winter pattern. " For the Saturday-to-Sunday event, accumulations of 1-2 inches are expected across the Baltimore area.