Long Island weather forecasts sunshine for Columbus Day weekend

Sun lovers rejoice. Nothing but blue skies are forecast for Long Island, all the way through Monday — the Columbus Day holiday — and on into midweek.

Temperatures likely will yo-yo a bit — with daytime highs retreating around a dozen degrees to the low 60s by Saturday from warmer temperatures expected on Thursday and Friday, according to the National Weather Service in Upton.

The sunshine’s return, “certainly is a pretty significant change from what we’ve been dealing with the last few days,” said John Murray, a weather service meteorologist in Upton, referring to the light rain that refused to let up.

“It is in fact going to be drier, and we certainly are going to be seeing a lot more sun than we have been in the last few days,” Murray said.

The low pressure system, which lifts warm air ahead of it that then can form raindrops, finally has headed out to the Atlantic, replaced by a weak but still cloud-clearing high pressure pattern.

That high pressure system originates to the south and west of the metropolitan area, where the air is typically warmer, which helps explain the brief warm-up forecast for Thursday and Friday.

Nighttime thermometers should fall to 48 degrees or so on Friday, as one of a series of cold fronts slides through.

Long Island even looks likely to be spared the sprinkles and downpours that may dampen northwest New Jersey and Connecticut on Friday afternoon, thanks to one of those cold fronts.

“Pretty much during the day tomorrow, we can expect just an increase for clouds for the late afternoon and into Friday evening,” Murray said.

Cold fronts also can trigger showers as they too lift warmer air ahead of them.

A high pressure system, whose air sinks instead of climbing, thus blocking rain, then dominates through the weekend.

Northwest breezes, which could gust up to 25 mph or so on Friday, and as high as 20 mph on Saturday, Murray said, should calm by Sunday.

And then temperatures will “rebound somewhat,” Murray said, getting into the low to mid-60s across Long Island … and then there will be "pretty similar temperatures going into Columbus Day.”

Monday’s official high for the holiday is expected to reach 65 — pretty much setting the daytime range through Wednesday.

Nighttime thermometers should hover around the low 50s in this period.