Long Island weather: Springlike weather ahead, highs above 50 Thursday

A chilly morning will ripen into a fine weather day Thursday, and the warm days ahead might start coaxing some spring flowers to bloom on Long Island, forecasters said.

Temperatures could crest over 50 degrees Thursday, offering pleasant weather for those heading out for the Yankees' afternoon home opener, said meteorologist Adrienne Leptich of the National Weather Service's office in Upton.

Just around 9 a.m. Long Island MacArthur Airport was reporting fair skies and a temperature of 41 degrees. Normals for the day at the Ronkonkoma airport are 51 for a high and 35 the low.

Another sign of emerging springlike weather is less severe chills in the evening and overnight hours, she said. Thursday night will see temperatures still hover over 40 degrees.

Friday will feature even more warmth, though perhaps spotty showers, as the thermometer rises as high as 60 degrees in the western parts of Nassau County, said meteorologist Rich Hoffman of News 12 Long Island.

Friday night will be cooler and breezy with a few mild showers, and temperatures decline to about 40 degrees, he said.

Saturday may well offer the gem of the weekend weather, with warm temperatures reaching into the low to mid-60s, especially in western Nassau and areas away from the shoreline, Hoffman said.

The last time MacArthur Airport hit 60 degrees was not so long ago — it was this year’s toasty Feb. 5, when 61 was the high for the day, the Northeast Regional Climate Center said.

Historically, the earliest the airport has reached 60 was Jan. 1, which also happened this year, and the latest, April 22, 1983.

Saturday night will also be mild with a few showers, temperatures again only slipping down to the 40s.

A breezy Sunday will keep temperatures in the low to mid-50s, Leptich said.

"Depending on how warm it gets over the next couple of days, we could see some things popping," she said.

Long Island's weather remains in a transition from winter to spring, and if we can get through the next two weeks, the chances of receiving any snow diminish greatly, she said.

"We're not really safe from the white stuff until about April 10," Leptich said.

The springlike weather will hit a meteorological speed bump in the early days of next week, as temperatures dip into the mid-40s and low 50s, and the nights hover in the mid-30s, forecasters said.

With Patricia Kitchen

By Craig Schneider

craig.schneider@newsday.comScraigo

Craig Schneider is a Long Island native and Stony Brook University alumnus. He joined Newsday as a general assignment reporter in January 2018 after 20 years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.