Hatteras and Ocracoke are in the deep freeze – but with little or no snow

Despite the bright sunshine that followed last night’s frontal passage, Hatteras and Ocracoke temperatures have not risen above freezing today.

As a northeaster wound up off the mid-Atlantic coast last night, the islands got hit with a little bit of everything — thunderstorms, high winds, freezing temperature, wind-driven tides, and a little snow.

And on top of all that, there was a power outage late last night that lasted 44 minutes.

Although there were photos online of northern Outer Banks youngsters out sledding this morning, the kids on Hatteras and Ocracoke missed out on that fun – though Hatteras students did get a day off from school.

The northern Outer Banks got up to a couple inches of snow.  According to the National Weather Service, an inch was measured in Duck and 1.5 inches in Manns Harbor.

There was enough snow to cover Highway 12 with a light dusting, and folks in the tri-villages on northern Hatteras had a light coating of crunchy white stuff on the grass this morning. 

On southern Hatteras, there were snow flurries overnight, but unless you were in a more protected area, there was no sign of any snow on the grass and decks this morning.

A line of thunderstorms came through Hatteras last night ahead of the front with strong winds and loud thunder.  At times, the wind was blowing so hard, it was hard to tell the difference between the noise of the gusty winds and the thunder.

The official highest wind gust at Billy Mitchell airport was 43 mph from the northwest, but gusts were measured in Hatteras village up to 54 mph.

The tide came up in the Pamlico Sound on southern Hatteras, but not enough to cause any major headaches.

After the thunderstorms moved out over the ocean, the temperature started dropping.

At 10:37 p.m., the power went out on Hatteras and Ocracoke.

The outage was caused by a transmission line failure on Dominion Power’s lines north of the Bonner Bridge.

Power was restored at 11:19 just as the temperatures were approaching freezing.

School was cancelled in Dare County and mainland Hyde County today, but Ocracoke schools were open.  Hyde County government offices on the mainland were closed because of the icy roads, but Dare County offices remained open.

The temperatures are forecast to rise into the upper 30s tomorrow, then take another dive tomorrow night with a clipper system on Thursday night.

The long-range forecast for the next week is for below normal temperatures.