The season’s first significant northeaster dumped snow on the mainland and shut down transportation, keeping many home, or away from home. March came in like a lion and gave Island school children one more day off before school resumed after the winter break. And many who spent the weekend trying to get back to the Island after a break, spent more time at the airport.

Buses between Boston and Woods Hole were cancelled all day on Monday.

Cape Air planes were grounded Monday. Colin Ewing of Cape Air said flights were cancelled not because of runways on the Vineyard, but because of the flying conditions. “We don’t fly in icing conditions,” Mr. Ewing said. Though the Vineyard was getting mostly rain, Boston was getting snow. “In between Boston and the Vineyard there was severe icing.”

At the Martha’s Vineyard Airport, the mix of snow, sleet, snow, ice and rain made keeping the runways one of the most difficult winter snowstorms that the airport manager can remember. Sean Flynn said: “I have not seen a snow-sleet mix like that. If you don’t remove the snow from the runway it becomes impossible to remove later. We spent a lot of time removing it.” Crews worked through the night Sunday and into Monday trying to keep ahead of it. They were working on Tuesday too. Mr. Flynn said managing the heavy snow was a challenge. “My crews worked through the night,” he said. “It was tough.”

Overhead was an even greater challenge for the airline industry. Mr. Flynn said many people don’t know that when you go up, it gets colder. “Every 1,000 feet of altitude, the air temperature drops two degrees.,” he said. “So it may have been raining on the ground, but up in the air it was icing. Airlines were concerned about icing.”

“This was our first northeaster of the season,” said Charles Foley, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Taunton. “It was unusual to have our first so late in the season.”

The storm was big, extending from as far south as Georgia and extending all the way up North. The first wave of the storm delivered two inches of snow in Edgartown by Sunday morning. An additional two inches of wet frozen snow and sleet was on the ground Monday morning. There were flurries in the air on Tuesday morning, making the storm fit the description of a northeaster perfectly, “a three-day northeaster.”

While snowfall was measured in feet in some places on the mainland, the total on the Vineyard when all was done was four inches. As melted precipitation, it was 1.46 inches, according to the National Weather Service cooperative station in Edgartown. Had that precipitation come as snow, the Vineyard would have been buried with more than 14 inches.

Winds from the northeast and then northwest were gale force.

Old Man Winter this year has not spared the Island from winter weather as in recent past years. So far the Island has seen 19.1 inches of snowfall, a few inches more than a normal winter. February had a total of four inches of snow. January had a total of 11.1 inches of snow, well ahead of the January average of 6.5.

In nearly all aspects, the Vineyard is having a more than average winter. In January there were two days when the temperature got as low as 4 degrees at the Edgartown weather station. The lowest temperature last month was 6 degrees. Frozen freshwater ponds have been accessible for skating, and a few inner coastal ponds were covered.

With Edgartown inner harbor open to the sea at Katama Bay, there has been no accumulating ice. But there has been ice in places like Lake Tashmoo, Lagoon Pond and Nashaquitsa Pond. The average temperature for January was 2.5 degrees below normal.

For those looking for evidence of global warming on the Island, there was a short but welcome January thaw on the 28th of the month, when the temperature rose to a high of 51 degrees. The average temperature for February was four degrees above normal.

The temperature rose to or above 50 degrees twice in February, the highest 54 degrees on February 8.

For those who follow Groundhog Day closely, the Vineyard does seem to be clinging onto winter. Punxatawney Phil, the groundhog residing in Pennsylvania, saw his shadow at sunrise. Had the animal been a resident of the Vineyard, his conclusion would have been the same: that Jack Frost won’t be leaving here soon and heading for the Southern Hemisphere.

This has been a full winter, giving further credibility to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, published in Dublin, N.H. The publication has “nailed it” when describing New England and Vineyard weather: “Other cold periods will occur in early and mid to late January, early and mid February and early March. Precipitation will be near or slightly above normal, with below normal snowfall in the north. The biggest snowstorm will occur in early March.”

But there is a bright side. Looking ahead, the Farmer’s Almanac forecasts: “April and May will be warmer than normal.”