The season's first major winter storm socked upstate New York with almost a foot of snow on Wednesday, causing one death, hundreds of school closings, accident-delayed commutes and power outages.

The National Weather Service said up to 10 inches fell before tapering off in early afternoon, with the highest totals in the Albany area, the Catskills, Mohawk Valley and Orange County in the Hudson Valley. The weather service said a wind gust of 67 mph was recorded at Dunkirk on Lake Erie.

A collision between a freight train and snow plow at a crossing in the Saratoga County town of Northumberland left one highway worker dead and another injured. Lt. Bill Seibert of the sheriff's department said James Shea, 68, who operated the truck's wing plow, was killed in the 8:45 a.m. crash. Driver Kerry Garnsey was in critical condition at Glens Falls Hospital. A spokesman for Canadian Pacific railroad said the two train operators were not hurt. Seibert didn't know if there was an automatic gate at the crossing.

Accidents also shut down stretches of an interstate highway in Albany and numerous other mishaps caused traffic backups along the Thruway system, mostly involving vehicles that slid off the highway and got stuck in the snow, a dispatcher said.

"We have 600 miles of roadway and we have storms from Buffalo all the way to the New York City area," said the Thruway Authority's Jeremy Lefort.

Utilities National Grid, NYSEG, Rochester Gas & Electric, a subsidiary of Iberdrola USA, and Central Hudson Electric & Gas, a subsidiary of CH Energy Group Inc., reported a total of about 30,000 power outages Wednesday afternoon, down from around 55,000 earlier in the day. Most of the outages were concentrated in western and central counties.

Thousands of students from the Syracuse area to New York City's northern suburbs had a snow day or started classes two hours later than usual because of the snowy conditions.

Marc Timmons of Wilton in Saratoga County was shoveling his driveway after getting off work at a supermarket and didn't mind the chore at all.

"I love to play in the snow", said Timmons, a skier and Air Force veteran who spent years traveling around the world. He had advice for fellow New Yorkers who complain about the weather: "Man, move out of New York. The upstate region is not for you."

In the Albany suburb of Guilderland, Robinson's Hardware was already doing brisk business Wednesday morning on shovels and melting salts.

"It's nonstop," Will Healy said as he tended the register, snow blowing hard outside the window. "People wait to the last minute."