Weather and Bad Timing For Fat Tuesday

[Dave]

Mardi Gras costumes were sparse but so were the crowds Tuesday as the annual extravaganza of parades and parties arrived earlier than usual because of a quirk in the calendar.

"I never saw this few people before," Roshawn Gilmore, 27, said. Long rows of empty chairs marked off some spaces on the normally jammed parade route.

The problem was partly that Fat Tuesday, the Bacchanalian blowout held the day before the start of Lent, is the earliest this year it's been in 15 years -- so far from spring break that it kept much of the college crowd away.

And while Tuesday was cloudy but mild, with a temperature of around 70, rain had fallen Monday and during the night, turning some spots muddy.

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