For a city hardened by emergency, it was a blizzard in name only.

New York City, for the most part, shrugged off the first major storm of the season, a Northeaster that dumped more than a foot of snow and blew strong gusts of wind across the five boroughs during the weekend but failed to paralyze city functions.

In most parts of the city, snow tapered off by late yesterday morning after blanketing Central Park with a total of 13.8 inches. Snow totals reached more than 17 inches in Brooklyn and less than a foot in the Bronx. In comparison, almost 20 inches fell in Central Park in the snowstorm of February 2003.

“I’ve been through a lot of storms, and this was not one of the top,” said the commissioner of the Department of Sanitation, John Doherty, during a late afternoon press conference yesterday.

That is not to say the blizzard of 2005 did not come with its own share of aggravations, tempered as they were by the storm’s weekend timing. About 1,200 flights were cancelled at the metropolitan area’s three major airports with travelers at LaGuardia airport also experiencing major delays. The city lifted its snow emergency by 5 p.m. yesterday but suspended alternate side-parking through next Saturday.

Subway service experienced some delays in the F, G, Q and A,C,E lines. In the early afternoon, an electrical fire raged for hours underground in the Chambers and Church A and C stop, resulting in a subway bottleneck north and south of the station. Emergency officials suspected that electrical wires burst in flames due to melting snow dripping from metal sidewalk vents.

The sanitation department dusted city streets with more 30,000 tons of salt and had plowed more than 90% of all streets by late yesterday. City officials expected that all of the city’s 6,300 miles of streets and highways to be plowed at least once by rush hour this morning. The city cancelled today’s garbage and recycling pick-ups. A spokeswoman for the Sanitation Department, Taryn Duckett, said she did not know when trash pick-ups would resume.

“Our first priority is to make sure these streets are clear,” she said.

City officials used the same measurement of cost that they offered in previous storms, saying the snow removal efforts would cost the city about a $1 million an inch.

The sanitation department had at its disposal about 1,500 plows and 353 salt spreaders with more than 2,000 snow-removal employees working 12-hour shifts. The department also recruited 600 people, paying them $9 an hour, to clear out sewage grates, bus shelters, crosswalks, and step streets in hilly areas.

Accumulations were heavier east of New York City with the heaviest bands of snow set over parts of southeastern Connecticut and eastern Long Island.

With tides astronomically higher due to Tuesday’s full moon and 20 to 30 mile gusts from the northeast pushing water west, some portions of the Long Island Sound experienced coastal flooding.

City emergency officials warned of icy conditions last night as temperatures fell to the low 10s this morning, with wind chill at five to 10 degrees below zero.

Forecasters predicted high temperatures to hover in the low 30s throughout the week with a warm-up by Thursday to 40 degrees.

Early yesterday morning, with temperatures well below freezing, some New Yorkers found it almost impossible to move their cars. By mid-morning, with the snow glittering as the wind continued to whip it around, cars began to move and frolickers came out to play.

With hard-packed snow perfect for sledding, skiing, and making snowballs, the city’s parks transformed into winter wonderlands for the first time this year. A rainbow of plastic sleds raced down the slopes.

By 10 p.m., dozens of New Yorkers and their dogs were making fresh tracks in Riverside Park. In Prospect Park in Brooklyn and Central Park, cross-country skiers made their own tracks. “It was fantastic,” said Joshua Mack, 40, who spent yesterday morning cross-country skiing. “Someone was snowboarding down the path, and he said, ‘it’s turned into a ski resort.’ ” Mr. Mack added, “He was right.”

“I thought there was going to be a little more up here,” said Will Dube, 12, taking a break from Prospect Park’s steep southernmost slopes. “But the news people are usually wrong. I wish it would keep snowing.”

He and fellow 7th grader at Park Slope’s Berkeley Carroll, Ben Kaltman, upset that reports of up to 20 inches of snow were way off, concluded they would be sitting in class this morning.

Some New Yorkers heeded Mayor Bloomberg’s advice to stay home, at least until the sun started to shine yesterday. The Target on Atlantic Avenue, which has been bustling since it opened this summer, was empty yesterday.

“Usually by now it’s crazy – you barely can walk,” said Anthony Paige, a cart attendant, who found time to rearrange the chocolates display. Scores of carts sat ready at the front of the store. “Usually you’ll see me with about 20 carts pushing them around,” he said, “and there are no carts waiting.”

From behind the counter at the Degraw Deli Grocery on 5th Avenue, Rosa Tigre snuck a few moments to call her native Ecuador. “It’s like crushed ice,” Ms. Tigre, 25, told her father excitedly in Spanish, reporting home on her first encounter with snow. “It’s pretty, but it is very cold. It makes it very difficult to walk.”

As the snow began to mount up Saturday afternoon, Ms. Tigre, who moved to New York last May, made her first snowballs and took pictures to send home. Still, she said one thing disappointed her. “In the movies,” she said, “when you see it falling down it just looks beautiful. But when you experience it it’s actually really cold.”