The first significant blast of cold weather of season that hit the Outer Banks and northeastern North Carolina early last week was already a confirmed record-setter, and has now matched another one.
A powerful cold front rolled across the region the afternoon of November 10, followed by a secondary front combined with an upper-level disturbance.
That disturbance was carrying enough moisture to produce flurries and scattered snow showers along the Outer Banks, while further inland as much as 2 inches of snow collected mainly on elevated and grassy surfaces.
The National Weather Service has confirmed that the early morning flurries last Tuesday on Hatteras Island officially produced a trace of snowfall at Billy Mitchell Field in Frisco.
That tied the earliest date in the season of at least a trace of snow at the reporting station for Cape Hatteras, which was initially set on Nov. 11, 1987.
The weather service noted that climate records from 38 years ago for Veteran’s Day do not show any snow accumulated.
Tuesday’s snow was the earliest accumulations on record at Gum Neck outside Columbia that was previously set on December 26, 2010, and in Plymouth (November 21, 2008) and Williamston (Nov. 24, 1935).
Cape Hatteras also set a new record low for Veterans Day of 36 degrees, breaking the old mark of 37 initially set in 1961 and then equaled in 1971.
The Cape Hatteras weather station site has been at several locations on southern Hatteras Island since the early 1900s.
That includes the historic Weather Bureau office in Hatteras village, the U.S. Navy facility that was located north of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, and a National Weather Service office which closed in the early 1990s where the Cape Hatteras Secondary School soccer field and Dare teacher housing complex now sits.
The Dare County Regional Airport in Manteo also set a new record low temperature for November 11 of 34, snapping the previous mark of 35 in 1976 and tied in 1996.
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