Long Island weather: Warming trend to follow light snow

Following Friday’s light snow, the weekend brings brisk days, with a 20 to 30 percent chance of more light snow — not expected to accumulate should it come — overnight Saturday into Sunday.

Saturday’s and Sunday’s highs are expected to be just about 40 degrees.

For some Long Islanders, here’s a reason to look forward to the start of the workweek, though. A “significant warming trend” is in the cards, the National Weather Service said, with highs as much as 15 degrees above normal.

The Washington Post put it this way in a tweet: “In the great March battle btwn Spring and Winter, Spring is totally going to win next week.” That’s from the Post’s weather writers, known as the Capital Weather Gang.

The mild spell begins Monday, with highs in the low 50s; then upper 50s for Tuesday; nearing 61 for Wednesday; and the mid 50s for Thursday, the weather service said.

It’s “a nice little warm up next week,” said Bill Korbel, News 12 Long Island meteorologist, with Wednesday looking at possible “highs around or a bit above 60 under sunny skies.” That’s not record-breaking territory, he said, with 66 the record set in 1990. “But it will still be a nice, almost springlike day.”

Indeed, the outlook for next Wednesday through Sunday puts Long Island in the area with a remarkable 80 to 90 percent chance for above normal temperatures — as opposed to below or right at normal, according to the Climate Prediction Center.

The average high for that period is 45.6 degrees, with 29.8 the average low, says Jessica Spaccio, climatologist with the Northeast Regional Climate Center, based at Cornell University.

Behind this hit of warmth is an expected pattern that brings a strong ridge of high pressure over the eastern United States, according to the Weather Prediction Center. Along with that comes “a southerly flow of air bringing the warm temperatures,” Spaccio says.