Long Island weather: High winds and showers overnight, then temps soar to 65 Wednesday

The showers falling Tuesday night should ease up around midnight but the high winds accompanying the rain will last through early Wednesday, forecasters said.

The National Weather Service issued a wind advisory that goes through midnight, warning of sustained winds of 20 to 30 mph along with 45 mph gusts. Earlier, the weather service said the advisory would continue through 5 a.m. Wednesday.

By 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, there were 61 outages affecting 738 customers, according to the PSEG Long Island outage map.

The weather service also put out an advisory about a Thursday night storm that could bring a wintry mix in an abrupt change from the warmer temperatures Wednesday, when the high should reach an unseasonable 65 degrees.

There is also a 20% chance of rain Wednesday morning before the sun comes out, the weather service said with southwest winds that will finally calm down and gust just up to about 15 mph.

Then Wednesday night, temperatures tumble dramatically and after a cloudy Thursday in the 30s, another winter storm system will be hitting the region Thursday night into Friday, the weather service said.

"A storm system Thursday night into Friday has the potential to bring a wintry mix of snow, sleet, freezing rain, and rain. Accumulating snow is mostly likely away from the immediate coast, but the probability of a warning level snowfall is low," the weather service statement said. "Impacts to the Friday morning commute are likely, but specific snow and ice amounts remain a bit uncertain at this time."

Tuesday, there's a gale warning in effect until 5 a.m. Wednesday for all Long Island waters, including Long Island Sound, South Shore bays and the Atlantic Ocean.

On the bright side, sunshine is in the forecast for Saturday. But, the high will hover right around freezing.

With John Valenti