After an unusually mild winter, the first snow storm of the season hit Cambridge with a blast this weekend, and meteorologists say the cold weather is here to stay.

The snowfall, which amounted to six and a half inches by Saturday evening, turned to rain and sleet later that night. Yesterday, roads and sidewalks were slippery, and the wind gusted up to 40 miles per hour.

Students said they enjoyed Saturday's snow, built snowmen in the yard and had snowball fights throughout the day.

"It was a lot of fun. It was a nice way to get out and do something," said Jenny N. Franzese '98, who said she took part in a snowball fight of more than thirty first-years in Canaday Yard on Saturday evening.

But some students from warmer climates said they were not pleased by the weekend weather.

"It's not at all what I expected," said Allison M. Briscoe '98, of Hawaii. "I thought it would be all clean and pure and nice, but it's really slushy and brown, and I fell down yesterday."

Mark A. Kille '95 of Chapel Hill, North Carolina said he has gotten used to Boston winters.

"I've been waiting all winter for the snow," Kille said. "It has been much too warm--it's been unnatural."

University and city snow crews were at work all day Saturday and through the night cleaning pathways and roads. The University Police received no reports of accidents or injuries in the course of the storm.

"It's been a very safe storm," said Bob E. Harrison Jr., a Harvard Police Dispatcher.

Most New Englanders yesterday said the weekend weather came as little surprise. In year's record breaking snowfall, 46.3 inches of snow had accumulated by this time.

"For most people, it was just a good, old-fashioned winter storm," Jim Mansfield of the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, said yesterday.

The wind chill factor last night reached 30 below zero. Temperatures are expected to stay below freezing through Friday, and the snow is not likely to melt away soon.

"I think this is absolutely intolerable," said Nina W. Kang '98 who is from Taipei, Taiwan. "If you stay out too long you'll die. I can't deal with that."