Long Island weather forecast: Heavy rain, high winds gust overnight, then a cooler week

Spring may be on the horizon later this week but in the meantime, Long Islanders Monday were dealing with showers and powerful winds, with another blast of cold arriving in the evening, forecasters said.

Showers are falling off and on across the island with one and a quarter inches of rain of rain expected in some areas. The East End will likely receive under an inch, while areas of western Long Island are forecast to receive on the higher end, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Pollina.

There's also the potential for some gusty thunderstorms late-Monday, the weather service said, along with isolated coastal flooding and beach erosion.

"It will start to taper off from west to east around daybreak Tuesday," Pollina said, adding that dense fog will limit visibility on the roads to a quarter mile or less until 1 a.m. Tuesday.

A wind advisory is in effect until 4 a.m. Tuesday as winds increase to between 40 and 55 mph, Pollina said. Isolated gusts could be around 60 mph.

The service said to expect wind gusts will toss unsecured objects, tree limbs could be blown down and some power outages may result.

Just before 8 p.m. there were 27 active outages affecting 290 customers according to PSEG Long Island. 

Tuesday's forecast calls for a mostly dry St. Patrick’s Day, with temperatures in the low 40s and gusts up to 25 mph, the weather service said.

"It'll be cool this week, especially the beginning of the week after the cold front passes tonight," said weather service meteorologist Jim Connolly.

Wednesday will reach highs in the high 30s, Thursday will reach the mid-40s, and Friday — the first day of spring — will reach the lower 50s.

However, don’t expect high temperatures like last week just yet.

"We're not going to have any of that nice, warm weather really, in the foreseeable future, at least through Sunday," Connolly said. "Those temperatures are pretty anomalous, so it might be tough to get those until maybe even April."

Newsday's Maureen Mullarkey contributed to this story.

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.