Above average temps continue this week

Go on, Long Island -- keep pretending it's not winter.

Long Islanders are eschewing heavy wool coats for lighter options, as the region enjoys unseasonably high winter temperatures.

Snowfall totals this year are just a tiny fraction of what they would normally be by this time, said Peter Wichrowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Upton.

"Because of the mild temperatures that we've experienced so far, we are running well below normal for snowfall," Wichrowski said.

While normally Long Island would have averaged more than seven inches of snow by early January, this year, just 0.2 inches have fallen -- and most of that was during the unusually early Oct. 31 snowstorm, he said.

Early this week, Long Islanders should expect high temperatures to be in the upper 40s -- about five degrees above normal, Wichrowski said.

That will change with a storm that's headed our way from the south on Wednesday night, which will push high temperatures back down to the 30s, where they, sadly, belong. Light rain is expected on Monday night, too.

But a warmer winter doesn't necessarily portend anything about summer, Wichrowski said -- it's too early to make predictions.

Wichrowski said an oscillation of high and low pressure over the Atlantic is the cause of this winter's palatable weather. Cooler air from Canada hasn't made its way down to us yet, he said.

But don't pack away the puffy jackets just yet.

"We still have quite a way to go," Wichrowski said. "February's climatologically our snowiest."