High school debaters brave snow and wind as they leave a Memorial Hall awards ceremony yesterday. Students from over 100 high schools were stranded at Harvard for an extra day because of cancelled flights.

A blizzard dropped more than a foot of snow on Cambridge last night, leaving undergraduates hoping anxiously—and fruitlessly—for class cancellations while stranding hundreds of high school debaters in Harvard dorms and area hotels.

In what meteorologists called the worst storm the Northeast has seen in seven years, the blizzard hit the mid-atlantic states hardest, but packed a punch in Massachusetts as well.

A blizzard warning was in effect for the Boston area. Logan Airport saw accumulations of about a foot and a half by last night. A total of two feet is expected before the final flurries peter- out this evening.

While Boston and Cambridge declared snow emergencies, Massachusetts—unlike many of its neighbors to the south—did not declare a state of emergency.

Governor W. Mitt Romney ordered non-essential state workers to remain home today, while Cambridge closed administrative offices.

While the College planned to remain open as of press time, the Graduate School of Education, School of Public Health and Divinity School are closed today. The Law School cancelled classes until at least noon.

The storm did win some undergraduates a few hours extra sleep this morning, as several professors who were unable to reach campus cancelled their classes.

The 37 students in Economics 1052, “Introduction to Game Theory,” got a respite from today’s 10 a.m. lecture when they learned by e-mail yesterday that Assistant Professor of Economics Markus M. Mobius was stranded in Chicago. He promised to schedule a make-up.

Professor of Physics Mara Prentiss told students she might cancel Physics 15b, “Introductory Electromagnetism,” and postpone a problem set originally due Friday.

But Anne T. Doyle ’04 said she was “mildly disappointed” to learn that a response paper was due as scheduled even though her professor—stuck in New York—would be unable to make her social studies tutorial this afternoon.

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 wrote in an e-mail that while he expected some professors and students might have trouble getting to Harvard, “since almost all College students are in residence, it makes sense to carry on operations and classes normally.”

The College last cancelled classes for snow in February 1978, when 27 inches of snow hit Massachusetts in the worst storm in state history.

Then-Governor Michael S. Dukakis declared a state of emergency forcing Harvard to cancel classes for three days.

Lewis wrote that the blizzard of 1978—which was blamed for 73 deaths and $500 million in damages in Massachusetts alone—presented far more dangerous conditions than yesterday and today’s snowfall.

While most Harvard undergraduates will have to brave the Cambridge sidewalks, some of the thousands of high school students who converged on Harvard for a debate tournament this weekend face a different challenge.