Below-normal Novemberrrrrr cold grips Long Island

Bundle up Tuesday night because it'll feel just a few ticks above zero, the coldest hours in a week with below-normal chill, according to the forecast.

The low will be about 20 degrees, but the winds will make temperatures seem like 5 to 10 degrees, said meteorologist Joe Pollina at the National Weather Service in Upton.

It's "nature's air conditioning," said Pollina, a cold-weather lover.

The cold air mass and wind gusts of up to 40 mph Tuesday stem from high pressure building from the south and a departing low-pressure system, meteorologists said.

"Mainly, the rest of the week is going to be cold and windy, because we're in between these pressure systems," said Brian Ciemnecki, another meteorologist at Upton.

Temperatures have been 15 degrees below normal, and Tuesday's high of 34 for most of the Island felt colder, the service said. It felt like 17 degrees with the wind chill at 9 a.m. in Farmingdale, Pollina said.

Wednesday and Thursday again will be cold and breezy, but neither day "should be as dramatic" in terms of Tuesday's high winds, Ciemnecki said.

For Wednesday, the daily high is 34 degrees, and then starts a luke-warming trend the rest of the week, until temperatures reach the low 50s on Sunday, Pollina said.

Due to the winds, some arriving flights at LaGuardia Airport were delayed an average of about two hours Tuesday afternoon, according to the Federal Aviation Administration website, www.fly.faa.gov.

The agency was advising travelers to check with their airlines to determine whether their flights are affected.

Despite the freeze, part of Pollina's mind has been on the opposite end of the thermometer.

"Even though I love the cold and snow, I'm currently working on a heat wave project," he said.

He's studying heat waves and trying to predict them, so that meteorologists can alert government emergency management officials and the public in advance.

He has been poring over historic weather data from the region -- New York City's goes back to the 1800s and Long Island to the 1980s.

Pollina said he looks for the heat waves, then looks for any common, atmospheric weather patterns that preceded each of them.