Long Island weather: Sunny Saturday, with springlike temps

Long Islanders can expect sunshine and warmer-than-normal temperatures to continue over the weekend, but the early springlike weather comes to a screeching halt for Monday’s morning commute.

Coming off a four-day stretch when the mercury hit 60 degrees and above — because of “an anomalous high pressure over the Caribbean” — a north flow came into the area late Friday, bringing with it a slightly chilly air, said Adrienne Leptich, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Upton Bureau.

But the winds will shift again, bringing by Saturday afternoon a southerly flow with temperatures in the upper 50s to around 60 degrees, Leptich said. High clouds will linger in the skies Saturday, then cloud cover begins to increase Sunday, bringing some “filtered sunshine” in the morning.

“It’ll still be mild, but the winds off the water on Long Island will probably keep the temps down a bit,” Leptich said.

Eastern winds will bring clouds and rain beginning after midnight Sunday into early Monday.

“Monday looks cold, raw and rainy,” Leptich said. “It’ll be wet, between an inch and an inch and a quarter of rain between Sunday night and Monday night, with temperatures in the mid-40s.”

The air will once again warm up after that system moves out, Leptich said, reaching back up to the 50s and 60s midweek.

“We do have a southwest flow Tuesday and Wednesday which does help to bring warmer air up this way,” Leptich said. “We’ve had these highs over the western Atlantic that have aided in bringing the warmer air mass over the western seaboard.”

The normal for Long Island at this time of the year is in the mid-40s, Leptich said, referring to March as “the worst month of the year in terms of chaotic weather.”

“Just because it’s warm now doesn’t mean we’re completely out of the woods,” she said.

Last March, 19.7 inches of snow was recorded at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma, according to Leptich. In the first 12 days of this month, one snowfall was recorded at 0.9 inches on March 4.

So far this month, the average temperature has been 52 for highs and 34 for lows, Leptich said, with Thursday hitting a record high at 73 degrees. Last year’s average temperature for the month was 43.

“But there doesn’t seem to be any cold air on the horizon, so for right now, it’s an early spring here,” Leptich said.