Long Island weekend weather forecast: snow followed by rain

Long Islanders can expect 1 to 3 inches of snow Saturday, before warmer temperatures and rain wash it away on Sunday, the National Weather Service said.

Matt Wunsch, a meteorologist with the weather service, said the Presidents Day weekend will start out with dry conditions on Friday. While Long Island will see highs in the lower to mid-30s, temperatures will feel like the upper teens to 20s due to the wind chill.

Isolated gusts can be up to 30 mph, making for “a breezy day,” he said.

The wind should drop off by the evening due to high pressure moving in.

Saturday will start out clear, but clouds will slowly thicken toward the afternoon. Snow should begin to fall after 1 p.m. from west to east and will continue through late afternoon.

But around the early evening as warm air moves from the south, the snow will mix with rain, Wunsch said. “The evening commute may be messy,” he said.

This means that areas closer to the North Shore can expect higher snowfalls of up to 3 inches, while the South Shore can expect rain earlier than other areas.

“As warm air moves in from the south, the North Shore is much more likely to have a longer duration of snow,” Wunsch said.

The precipitation should fully transition to rain by Sunday as temperatures climb to highs in the upper 40s to lower 50s. The service forecasts 1½ to 2 inches of rain to fall intermittently throughout the day.

With the rainfall and warmer temperatures, most of Saturday’s snow will likely melt away, Wunsch said.

Wunsch said that despite recent snow and rain in late fall and early winter, Long Island has not fully recovered from last year’s drought.

Sunday’s significant rainfall will help, especially since the melted snow will only total one-tenth to three-tenths of and inch.

“We’ve been below average basically since the fall, and we haven’t quite yet gotten out of that,” he said.

Monday will see mostly dry but windy conditions, with wind chill values in the upper teens to 20s.

Skies will mostly remain dry throughout the week until Thursday, when the next potential system will appear.