Long Island weather: Cold night ahead, possible frost by morning

After record-breaking warmth, the mercury is falling to about where it should be in November, with patchy frost a possibility for Wednesday morning after a cold night, the National Weather Service said.

Tuesday's high was the mid-50s after a radical shift in temperature Monday as a cold front came through. The cool-down, caused by a cloud-clearing high pressure system, follows Monday’s record-breaking heat, with five of six local weather sites setting new highs.

Winds could gust up to around 25 mph, and temperatures will tumble Tuesday night, said the weather service said, which issued a freeze watch for Suffolk through Wednesday morning.

Look for thermometers to mainly stick to the 50s during the days over the next week and bounce around the 40s at night, though at times they may again threaten to hit freezing.

Sunny skies are predicted through Thursday but then clouds arrive, and rain could start by the early afternoon on Friday, Veterans Day, with downpours continuing Saturday, the weather service said.

The showers could deliver 1½ to three inches of rain and winds could gust up to 40 mph along the coast.

The shower outlook is complicated, however, because it springs from two systems.

The first is the remnants of Nicole, now a subtropical storm expected to be “at or near hurricane strength as it's moving near the northwestern Bahamas and approaching the east coast of Florida,” the National Hurricane Center said.

"We continue to monitor the track of #Nicole and the potential impacts it could bring to the region. Uncertainty remains, but a heavy rainfall is possible Friday into Saturday, along with a period of gusty winds," the weather service said.

The second system determining how much rain falls in the metropolitan area is an upper-level trough, a long rain-causing low pressure system, that will sweep “over the central states to the Great Lakes Friday into Friday night,” the weather service said.

That pattern could send a cold front to this region that might absorb Nicole.

“The largest uncertainties continue to be with the interaction of the front/upper trough with the remnants of Nicole over the southeast,” the weather service said.

The skies should clear by Sunday and stay that way through Monday, when the daytime high will be a chillier 48 degrees.