Forecast: Warmer weather on the way; snow possible Christmas Eve

Snow, enough to make Long Island roads icy and hazardous, but here and gone too soon for a White Christmas, will end before noon Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

Throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties, the snow will most likely begin about 8 a.m., according to meteorologist James Pamasini with the National Weather Service’s Upton office. Anyone traveling Tuesday morning "should use extra caution," he said.

"We’re expecting a real light snowfall, but because the ground has been so cold ... anything that falls will likely stick," Pamasini said. "We’re only expecting a couple tenths of an inch up to around a half an inch."

The last Christmas Eve snowfall on Long Island occurred three years ago, when the National Weather Service recorded 0.3 inches in Islip, where precipitation levels have been measured since 1963, Pamasini said. The most ever recorded there was Christmas Eve 1966, when 5.3 inches of snow accumulated.

Christmas on Wednesday will be sunny with highs in the mid-30s, Temperatures are anticipated to drop to the low- to mid-20s for the first night of Hanukkah.

Thursday and Fridays forecasts call for sunny skies with highs in the high 30s to low 40s, with lows both nights in the mid to upper 20s.

With Nicholas Grasso

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”