Another wet, windy autumn weekend predicted for Long Island, forecasters say
Bill Vorisek of Nesconset walks his dog Woody during Wednesday's sunrise over Lake Ronkonkoma. Credit: Tom Lambui
Rain, rain go away?
If forecasters are correct, Long Islanders will see a fifth straight weekend with rain come Saturday — and the ninth weekend with rain since the start of August.
But, the National Weather Service said Wednesday that all the talk of a possible nor'easter hitting this weekend appears to be just that: talk.
"It's going to get windy on the back side of the system moving through," weather service meteorologist Bill Goodman said. "But, that's it. Some rain Friday and at least part of Saturday. Sun on Sunday with strong winds and maybe some higher gusts.
"But a nor'easter? Um, no. More like fall weather in the Northeast."
The weather service is calling for rain showers Friday and into Saturday, with light winds of about 8-11 mph.
Rainfall is supposed to be about ¼- to ½- inch each day.
Winds could be as strong as 20-30 mph on Sunday, Goodman said, with gusts into the mid-to-upper 30s.
But, he cautioned, it's still too early to know if those winds will actually materialize.
Some forecasters have been predicting that remnants of Pacific Super Typhoon Bolaven would impact the East Coast, especially Long Island, resulting in a dangerous nor'easter this weekend. But forecasters at both the Canadian weather service and its American counterpart said that won't be the case. "It's possible they could see some sort of storms in New England and the Canadian maritime regions," Goodman said, "but even that might be a stretch."
Records show that after all four weekends in August saw rain, a brief hiatus followed for the first three weekends of September.
Now Long Island faces its fifth straight weekend with rain on at least one of the weekend days — and, Goodman said, that might not be the end of it.
He said though the forecast models remain too far into the future to predict with any certainty, there's a distinct possibility it will rain not only this weekend but the two that follow.
"I think we're at a point where we can say, 'Could it just stop raining on the weekends already?'" he said. "… I could go out on a limb and say maybe we'll break the streak in November. But, it's too early to tell."
Across Long Island, seasonal festivals and businesses have taken hits due to all the rain.
The Word poetry festival, scheduled for last Saturday at Schoolhouse Green in Oceanside, switched to its rain date, last Sunday, due to the miserable weather. The annual Oyster Fest in Oyster Bay was impacted greatly by the rainy, damp, and cold weather Saturday, spokeswoman Kerry Gillick-Goldberg said, although the festival did its best to rebound when the weather cleared Sunday.
The terrible weekend weather has been less forgiving for seasonal businesses like pumpkin farms, said David and Michelle Fink, husband-and-wife owners of Fink's Country Farm in Wading River.
Not only has the weather hurt the crop yield, but it's impacted their heavily weekend-oriented agritourism business. That includes pumpkin picking, hay rides, corn maze activities and pony rides.
"It started in mid-July, when we had that heavy, heavy rain that washed through the crop," David Fink said. "It just spread disease."
That, Michelle Fink said, coupled with later rains, caused rot — and led to this year's pumpkin yield to be down at least 50%.
And weekend rains have dampened turnout, as well.
The Finks estimate that on a sunny fall weekend in pre-Halloween pumpkin season, turnout can be in the hundreds, even into the thousands.
This year? Can you count on one hand?
"The weather certainly has been detrimental to operations," David Fink said. "But if you don't laugh you might cry. We've had bad years before. I think it was 2010 or 2011 when we had a really rainy fall — and somehow you make it through … We didn't make it four generations by giving up."
The Finks are hopeful the recent weekend weather pattern changes soon.
They say they may extend their season a week past Halloween into November.
We're in for sunshine Thursday with a high in the mid- to upper 60s. But Friday brings a 70% chance of showers, with that rain continuing into Saturday, most of it before 3 p.m., the weather service said.
The forecast is calling for clearing skies through the day Sunday, when it will be "breezy."
John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”
