By Ylan Q. Mui, Washington Post Staff Writer

Retailers can stop accusing the economy of holding back holiday sales. Now they can blame it on the weather.

The mighty blizzard expected to descend on the Northeast today comes on the last Saturday before Christmas, typically the busiest day of the year for retailers. But with as much as a foot of snow forecast from North Carolina to New Jersey, retailers are worried that their customers will spend the Super Saturday shoveling rather than shopping. One meteorologist predicts that could result in a retail snowmaggedon.

"Boy, duck," said Scott Bernhardt, chief operating officer at Planalytics, one of the companies that advise retailers. "People can handle flurries. They can handle rain, a little bit of icing. But when it starts to accumulate, that's the tipping point."

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