A severe coastal storm that spread snow from Virginia up into Maine, a day before the first official day of winter, shut down the Vineyard for most of Sunday with gale winds and heavy freezing snow. Chappaquiddick went without electricity for nearly a full day, and Martha’s Vineyard Airport remained closed until Tuesday afternoon.

Gale winds began Saturday afternoon; snow arrived before midnight and didn’t let up until midday Sunday.

During the worst of the storm Sunday lights flickered across the Island, and in remote areas were out for hours.

At 3 a.m. on Chappaquiddick a series of power lines broke. Sparks and fires burned high overhead, according to one witness.

Workers for Hawkeye Construction, an NSTAR contractor, had come over in anticipation of the storm; they did much of the repair work.

So many lines were down on Chappy that more that a dozen powerline workers were called in; the Chappy ferry provided special service to get line crews to the tiny island. They worked through the night repairing 10 to 15 breaks in the main service line to the Island, according to NSTAR spokesman Mike Durand.

Because of the number of breaks and safety concerns, NSTAR supervisor Dan Stiles decided to shut off electricity to the little island.

Peter Wells, a captain with the fire department and owner of the Chappaquiddick ferry, turned the fire station into a makeshift soup kitchen giving hot food to the workers.

Power was restored at approximately 7:30 p.m., though crews continued to work on Chappy’s secondary lines well into Monday.

Aquinnah also was without electricity, for as much as two hours.

Snowfall amounts varied. Up-Island saw more than a foot of drifting snow. The National Weather Service cooperative station in Edgartown recorded a total of 9.5 inches.

Monday lessons at Vineyard schools were delayed by two hours; some students fit in some morning sledding before classes began under sunny skies.

Four ferry trips were cancelled Sunday morning. The first roundtrip of the ferry Martha’s Vineyard and the first roundtrip of the Nantucket were cancelled — because of the high winds, not snow, according to the Steamship Authority spokesman Bob Davis.

Despite the rising wind on Saturday, ferries were able to stick to their schedules well into the night, Mr. Davis said. A freight trip was cancelled Saturday night because of a lack of need. Mr. Davis said travelers took earlier boats in anticipation of the storm.

Winds on Sunday kept many roads and parking lots covered. The wind anemometer at the Martha’s Vineyard Shipyard off Beach Road in Vineyard Haven recorded a high of 70 m.p.h. Sustained wind gusts on Sunday morning stayed well over 20 m.p.h.

Cape Air suspended flights to the Vineyard Saturday morning and didn’t resume them until Tuesday afternoon.

The Martha’s Vineyard Airport was closed just after midnight Sunday morning and didn’t reopen until Tuesday at 2 p.m. Sean Flynn, airport manager, said crews could keep ahead of the snowfall coming down, but the gale force northeast winds kept bringing snow back onto the runway.

Even after the skies cleared, ice forming on the runways kept them from reopening. The airport doesn’t use salt. The temperature was in the 20s through the weekend; it briefly touched 32 degrees on Monday and stayed below freezing Tuesday.

Mr. Flynn estimated there were 16 inches of snow on the ground at the airport, and drifting was significant. “This wasn’t the biggest storm [but] it was a significant storm,” he said.

Frank Nocera, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton, said the most snow fell on the coast. “The heaviest snowfall was on the south coast of Rhode Island, from Westerly to Fall River and on to New Bedford and to the Cape. There were from 20 to 24 inches of snowfall at some places,” he said.

A weekend wedding on the Vineyard was especially white. Susan Goldstein of the Mansion House in Tisbury said the hotel was full of patrons through the weekend, many of them Canadian relatives of the bridegroom. “They kept saying to me that it was just like home,” Mrs. Goldstein said. A couple of Islanders attending the wedding chose to spend the night at the hotel, instead of driving back to their Chilmark home, because of the bad weather.

Looking down Main street at the height of the storm was a sight, Mrs. Goldstein said. “It was quiet. No one was around. There was a parking ban in effect,” she said.

In the cleanup, truckloads of snow were taken out of downtown Tisbury and put in huge piles at the old Department of Public Works site across from the elementary school.

Even with few cars on the road, Edgartown police were busy. Detective Craig Edwards said they responded to 14 false automated home alarms going off across town during the storm. Police were called to assist those in a car that slid off Beach Road mid-afternoon.

In Oak Bluffs a pickup truck skidded through a stop sign and ran into a town snowplow. Oak Bluffs police offered courtesy drives for an employee at Windemere and another who had to be at the Council on Aging. In the severest weather, Lieutenant Timothy Williamson said, the Oak Bluffs police will give rides to those essential employees otherwise unable to get to the hospital to work.

Mr. Durand, a spokesman for NSTAR, said his company implemented a new strategy when dealing with severe coastal storms. He said crews are sent over to the Vineyard prior to the storm.

The forecast for the weekend is only slightly milder. Mr. Nocera said another ocean storm is coming, but this one is slightly warmer and will bring strong winds off the ocean, which means rain. Farther inland there will be snow.