Having a ball

When the sun rose over the Lowcountry Saturday, it welcomed a new race of people to yards across town.

With sticks for arms and old scarves draped around their necks, snowmen cropped up as residents gathered what remained on the ground after the overnight winter storm.

The National Weather Service's official measurement at Charleston International Airport came in at 3.3 inches at midnight, a novelty for the area but short of the 1989 record of 6 inches.

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The most snow fell just northeast of Summerville in Berkeley County, with more than 8 inches on the ground at 7 a.m. Saturday.

The Downs family on James Island loaded snow from their yard into a wheelbarrow and rolled it down to their dock to build a snowman. They dressed him in a hat with dreadlocks and a pair of sunglasses and called him "the Rasta Snowman."

"We thought, 'How neat would it be to have a tropical snowman sitting on the dock like he was getting sun?' " John Downs said. His 9-year-old daughter, Charlotte, had never seen snow, and his 11-year-old son, Johnny, saw it only once before as an infant.

"I acted like a little kid," Johnny Downs said. "I ran around with my little sister and my mom."

Across the river in Mount Pleasant Cindy Branscome built a big white snowpuppy with floppy ears and a leash and photographed her two dogs, Jack and Lucy, on either side of it. By early evening, Branscome said all the snow in her yard had melted, except the snowdog.

"But I've had to give him a few minor surgeries," she added.

For all the fun, the snow also left tens of thousands of people without power and contributed to as many as 80 traffic accidents in Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties between Friday night and Saturday morning. Even after the snow melted Saturday evening, the National Weather Service issued an advisory warning drivers of "black ice," or slippery patches of melted snow that refreezes and blends in with the roadway.

South Caroline Electric & Gas reported that about 200 customers still did not have power Saturday night, while Berkeley County Electric Co-Op reported about 11,000 outages.

Today's high in the Charleston area should reach the low 50s, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Douglas Berry. Overnight temperatures will drop to about 35 degrees and return to highs in the low 50s for Monday, Berry said.

There is no chance of snow.

Reach Allyson Bird at 937-5594 or abird@postandcourier.com.