Playing rope-a-dope for most of the winter, Mother Nature showed her spring power, unleashing the third biggest snowstorm ever on the Bay State - a paralyzing roundhouse punch that could take days to recover from.

With whipping gusts, a downpour of tree-bending wet snow, and thunder and lightning, the record-breaking blizzard of 1997 knocked out electricity to nearly 700,000 people, stifled air and ground transportation and felled hundreds of trees.

"We literally had thousands of abandoned motor vehicles on the roadway. I'm not just talking about the Boston area, they're all over the state," said State Police Sgt. Larry Gillis.