1-month snowfall a 113-year high

The dazzling oceanside setting that makes Cape Cod a tourist destination contributed yesterday to another furious onslaught of snow that fell from Falmouth to Provincetown, as Massachusetts endured a winter storm that helped set a record for the highest monthly snowfall in 113 years -- and left everyone from public-works crews to shop owners and motorists frazzled and fatigued.

More than 6 inches fell across Central and Eastern Massachusetts, but additional snow and blizzard conditions continued overnight on the Cape. Cold air from the north and northwest blew across the warmer waters offshore, increasing that area's snow total. The Cape also received more snow than many other areas of Massachusetts last weekend, which had left shoulder-high snow banks and all but major arteries draped in snow three days later.

Crankiness, irritability, and cabin fever were taking hold on this windswept peninsula, better known for its grin-and-bear-it attitude toward winter weather.

''Oh, I hate it," said Sue Oliva, 40, a tire store employee, who said she had played countless games of Yahtzee and Scrabble to keep herself occupied at home. ''My son's in college in Alabama, and he's complaining it's 60 degrees there."

In Boston, the parents of some public-school children, as well as teachers living outside the city, deluged school and city transportation phone lines yesterday morning, similarly exasperated after schools reopened despite heavy snow that started just before daybreak. At midafternoon, School Superintendent Thomas W. Payzant decided to close schools today and tomorrow. Payzant and Mayor Thomas M. Menino said it would allow public-works crews to clear the fresh snow and the final remnants of the weekend blizzard. The earlier storm had closed schools Monday and Tuesday.

Snow was expected to end a little after midnight in Greater Boston, but residents can look forward to a 30 percent chance of more snowfall Monday, according to the National Weather Service.

The recent snowfall not only pushed Massachusetts past the previous record total for a January -- 39.8 inches, set at Logan in 1996 -- but it also broke the monthly snowfall record at Logan -- 41.6 inches, set in February 2003, according to statistics kept since 1892 by the National Weather Service. As of 9 o'clock last night, 4½ inches of snow was reported at Logan International Airport. That brought the total snowfall for January to 42.2 inches.

In addition, the record totals caused the state to deplete its $37.6 million snow- and ice-removal account, prompting Governor Mitt Romney to seek a $28 million supplemental appropriation from the Legislature to pay plow crews responsible for clearing state highways and government property.

Before yesterday's storm, the state had accrued $57.9 million in snow-removal expenses. Romney's request would exceed that total by $7.7 million. The extra money is targeted to pay the new bills and additional plowing expenses this winter, said Jon Carlisle, spokesman for the Executive Office of Transportation.

The governor asked President Bush to declare an emergency in 10 Massachusetts counties so they could receive federal assistance to recover from the weekend storm. At its height, there were 41,000 power outages, snowdrifts topped 7 feet, and wind gusts reached 83 miles per hour.

''This event was a record or near-record snowfall impacting the Commonwealth, accompanied by hurricane-force winds and extraordinary drifting, contributing to the cumulative effect of snow already present on the ground," Romney wrote in his two-page letter.

Counties needing aid are Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes, Essex, Middlesex, Nantucket, Norfolk, Plymouth, Suffolk, and Worcester. In one example, the City of Boston, which is part of Suffolk County, had already overspent its $7.7 million snow budget by $1.7 million as of yesterday.

Wendy Northcross, chief executive officer of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, said she also planned to ask Romney to seek federal disaster-relief funds for hard-hit Cape businesses. Of the 9,000 businesses there, 95 percent have five to 10 employees. Northcross hoped they would qualify for low-interest loans.

Sunday's blizzard had knocked out power for some 25,000 Cape residents. Early yesterday evening, NStar reported about 300 outages scattered across the Cape, Plymouth, and New Bedford, but but by 8:30 that number was down to 100.

Mark Ells, Barnstable's director of public works, said he was grappling with another looming question raised by the snow: where to haul it all.

After clearing major intersections, Ells said, he was considering trucking it to empty lots by Barnstable Municipal Airport or beach parking lots, now bereft of summer autos. One concern, he said, was to make sure the snow didn't leech road salt or chemicals into sensitive ecosystems.

''It's a challenge," Ells said. ''Especially down here. Cape Cod doesn't get these sorts of storm events that regularly."

The state Department of Environmental Protection sent out a statewide notice urging municipal officials and residents to refrain from disposing of snow in waterways, wetlands, or other surface waters.

The advisory said: ''Snow disposal in water may seem benign and even tempting, but the mixture of salt, sand, oil, pollutants, and trash carried along with the snow (sometimes surreptitiously) will degrade the water quality of wetlands, surface waters, and harbors that so much money, time, and effort has already been expended to improve and protect."

Northcross, the chamber CEO, lives in West Barnstable and said she was typical of many people living on the Cape, where normally mild winters often make it possible to golf year-round.

''There's a little bit of cabin fever going on," said Northcross, who considered herself fortunate after she was able to snow-blow a single path to the front door of her home. The unusually large amount of snow left neighbors competing for the services of a limited number of driveway plows, most of whom were deluged with service calls from their regular customers.

''It's a lost week," Northcross said. ''People are now just finally realizing they either have to dig themselves out or wait till spring."

In Chatham, police Detective Lieutenant Michael Walker was sleepy after beginning work at 7 Saturday night and not returning home until 4 p.m. Monday. He was back at the town's emergency operating center the next morning, and has worked standard eight-hour shifts since.

''Today's Thursday, right?" he asked yesterday.

School will be canceled in Chatham again today, with 12-foot-high snow piles at intersections preventing school buses from making basic turns.

''I've been here 30 years, and I've never seen this," Walker said.

But the arctic conditions had some dreaming of summer seaside vacations.

''Surprisingly, when it snows throughout New England, people start thinking, when they're housebound, about their summer getaways, and it does make our phone ring," said Bob DuBois, executive director of the Yarmouth Area Chamber of Commerce, who was working late yesterday even as the rest of the Cape was virtually shut down.

Globe staff writers Mac Daniel and Tracy Jan contributed to this story, as did correspondent Jack Encarnacao. Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.