While the Vineyard saw gusty winds and snow flurries on Sunday, it did not see the snowstorm that was forecasted ahead of the weekend.
A nor’easter that was previously predicted to do further damage to the Island already trapped under a foot of snow traveled up the East Coast and only grazed the Vineyard with a dusting of snow and high winds. Some states saw heavy snowfall from the storm system and parts of North Carolina saw the most snow the state’s seen in decades.
Vineyarders had expected to see up to 7 inches of snow as of a Friday forecast, although the expected snow accumulation dwindled as Sunday neared. Instead, the Vineyard saw a paltry half-inch to an inch of snow, though Francis Tarasiewicz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Norton office, said the Island experienced wind gusts of up to 60 mph. Tarasiewicz said the nor’easter moved east faster than expected and it “escape[d] out to sea.”
There were no power outages on the Island, said Olessa Stepanova, communications director for the Island’s utility company Eversource, and the regional grid remained reliable throughout the weekend.
Peak energy demand reached 19,880 megawatts, which is still below projected peak demand for the season, on Friday, Jan. 30. In November, ISO New England, a nonprofit corporation that manages the grid for the six New England states, forecasted that demand this winter would peak at 21,000 megawatts under below-average temperatures, which is what most of the region is experiencing. There are 31,000 megawatts available from resources across the entire system.
There wasn’t a lot of concern from grid operators prior to last weekend’s storm, but weeks of cold temperatures pushed ISO, on behalf of generators, to file for exemptions from the Department of Energy to allow a specific list of resources to “run in ways that keep the grid reliable, even if that temporarily overrides regulatory or emission requirements.” This emergency order, first approved before on Jan. 25, was extended last Friday and will last through Feb. 14.
“The ISO continues to monitor system conditions as cold weather conditions are forecasted throughout the week,” Mary Cate Colapietro, senior communications specialist for ISO New England, said.
This was a stark contrast to the roughly one foot of snow that fell between Jan. 25 and 26, which was the most snow the Island had seen in years. Last weekend’s storm led to blocked driveways and slippery roads.
Jessie Steere, owner of Shirley’s True Value Hardware in Vineyard Haven, said the store had sold 500 shovels and 20 pallets of salt (a pallet can hold around 49 bags of salt that weigh roughly 50 lbs each) this year. And already, he ordered 300 more shovels, which are in transit by Carroll’s Moving and Storage, from New York.
Steere said that the large number of people that moved to the Island in recent years likely hadn’t thought about the need to buy a shovel since there hadn’t been this heavy snow in awhile. And he also said that some products, like specific brands of rock salt, aren’t as readily available now because of the damage caused by the snow that’s already fallen on the East Coast.
“At this point if something comes up, you just grab it,” Steere said. “Everybody on the East Coast is grabbing stuff.”
On Feb. 1, the Steamship Authority canceled multiple trips due to the weather, and warming centers were opened to give people reprieve from the cold. Meanwhile, the lack of snow allowed Edgartown to lift its street parking ban early.
And Islanders found time to enjoy the frigid Sunday, from playing pond hockey to letting the wind take them while ice sailing.
