Thunderstorms cool off Long Island

A line of thunderstorms moved through Long Island last night, cooling off the area with rain and wind gusts.

"This is going to put an end to the heat here," said Nelson Vaz, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Upton.

He added that temperatures for the next couple of days will be in the 80s, and that the Island should feel drier and air quality should improve.

Thursday's storm brought wind gusts between 30 and 40 mph and up to three quarters of an inch of rain to some parts of Long Island, Vaz said.

Officials from Nassau and Suffolk Police said no major storm related incidents or accidents were reported.

Showers and possible thunderstorms were forecast through the weekend, with temperatures in the 70s and low 80s.

The official high on Long Island yesterday was 92 at Islip at 11:14 a.m. and the high in New York City was 95 degrees at 1:57 p.m., according to Lauren Nash, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. The record high for this day is 95 in Islip, set in 2008, and 97 in Central Park, set in 1933.

In one heat-related incident, police in Rockville Centre said 11 students and a teacher's aide rehearsing for a school play in the auditorium at the Riverside School were treated for heat stress.

Five of the students were briefly hospitalized as a precaution but had been released by the end of the day, school Superintendent William Johnson said. The teacher's aide remained hospitalized as a precaution, he said.

People seeking to escape the second day of high temperatures flocked to cooling centers opened in Nassau and in New York City.

On the sands of Long Beach, Elizabeth Fine, 25, of Oceanside, wondered at the rapid changes in the weather this year. "It's early in the year for such a hot day," she said. "It's crazy. Two weeks ago it felt freezing."

With Andrew Strickler

and Mikala Jamison