National Weather Service details wild Christmas weather

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By National Weather Service Newport/Morehead City

From Christmas Eve into Christmas Day, we saw a little bit of everything — 70-degree temperatures, tornado warnings, wind gusts near hurricane force, 20-foot waves and even snow flurries.

An area of low pressure was tracking well to our northwest across the Appalachian Mountains Christmas Eve day, with a very strong trailing cold front.

For most of the day we were well removed from the front, but the southerly winds ahead of it pushed temperatures toward 70 degrees over much of eastern North Carolina by that afternoon.

At the same time very strong winds were occurring in the atmosphere just above the surface. These winds increase quickly with height, meaning they were much stronger with increasing elevation.

In addition the wind direction changed or veered with height, from southerly near the surface to southwest and eventually westerly thousands of feet up. Instability from the warm temperatures, and the strength of the wind and how it changed with height created conditions favorable for severe thunderstorms producing damaging winds and even tornadoes.

Multiple lines of thunderstorms moved through on Christmas Eve, producing strong winds and in some cases some damage. Multiple severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings were issued.

A 71 mph wind gust was measured at Cedar Island, in far eastern Carteret County with thunderstorm damage near Pollocksville, in Jones County.

Rainfall was mainly under an inch, but more than 2 inches fell from Morehead City north and east, including over 4″ on Ocracoke Island. Despite strong southerly winds, we did not experience any major coastal flooding.

Some standing rain water was found along N.C. 12 in Dare County along with windblown sand, but only slow going was reported, no closures. Large waves did impact our coastline, with 22 foot waves reported at Diamond Shoals.

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