Long Island digs out from winter storm, with possible light snow this week

As Long Islanders continue the cleanup from Tuesday's snowstorm, the National Weather Service said the region could see two more days this week with a light snowfall.

A wintry mix returns to the forecast for Thursday, with a 50% chance of rain and snow in the evening, when temperatures will hover around the freezing mark. The wet weather gives way to sunshine and temperatures in the 40s Friday. Then, snow showers are predicted Friday night into early Saturday, the weather service said.

National Weather Service meteorologist John Cristanello said chances are the mixed snow-rain showers expected Thursday night into Friday — and the possibility of snow Saturday — will add up to very little accumulation.

“Because it’s a mix, it’d be very little if no accumulation Thursday,” Cristanello said. “The next system [Friday into Saturday] looks like it will be a bit more to the south. We’ll be on the northern fringe of whatever could occur and maybe we’re looking at a half inch.

“Certainly, neither day will be anything like what we just saw Tuesday,” he said.

Much of the snow from the biggest winter storm to hit the region in two years has been cleared from local roads, but icy spots remain. Wednesday's sunshine helped melt the snow piles — up to 9 inches fell on the North Shore — but temperatures will remain chilly this week. 

Police agencies in Nassau and Suffolk reported more than 250 accidents during the storm Tuesday, with Suffolk County police reporting 133 crashes between 3 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.

Nassau County police said they had 82 reported crashes between 1 a.m. and 1 p.m., while state police reported 51 accidents, four with minor injuries, as well as 15 disabled vehicles.

While police said almost all of the crashes were minor, Suffolk police reported a fatal pedestrian accident on Route 109 at Route 110 in East Farmingdale at 2:23 a.m. Tuesday.

PSEG Long Island said 15,941 customers were without power at some point during the storm. Service was restored to 97% of all customers by 8:15 p.m., said David Lyons, PSEG Long Island's interim president and COO.

Lyons credited the post-Superstorm Sandy storm-hardening program, aided by some $729 million in grants from FEMA, with building up storm-resistant infrastructure. Those measures included replacing older wooden utility poles with thicker storm-resistant ones, stronger pole cross-arms and heavier transmission wires, among others. 

“Our system performed very well in the snowstorm,” Lyons said, “and we’re seeing the benefits of our storm-hardening program. We had less outages than we would have seen years ago.”

While many surrounding locations in the tristate area got more than a foot of snow, including 13.8 inches in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and 13.4 inches in Monroe in upstate Orange County, most of Long Island's snow fell on the North Shore in Nassau.

Locust Valley had 8.7 inches, Glen Cove 8.1, Muttontown 7.8, Syosset 7.5, Plainview 7.4 and Levittown 6. In Suffolk, the Commack area got 8 inches, while Smithtown and Stony Brook saw 7 inches, Huntington 6.6, Ridge 6.5, Coram 6.1 and Miller Place and Centereach 6.