Long Island weather: Record-breaking warmth

When the sun sets Sunday, temperatures will hover in the mid-60s … in November?!

Once the clocks are set back early Sunday morning — ending Daylight Saving Time, which began in March — the region will be cast in darkness in unseasonable warmth, on top of the usual extra hour of sleep that the time change brings.

“That will throw some people off, but certainly this is the better of the two switches that we make every year,” Dr. Muhammad A. Rishi, an associate professor at Indiana University who studies sleep medicine and who is also vice chairman of the public safety committee of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, said of the time switch.

But for some, the time of less sunlight can mean more mental darkness, at least initially. 

“Especially for people who have mood issues, the fall switch can throw them off a little bit,” he said, because of the body’s circadian clock.

Temperatures on Saturday broke record highs on Long Island, and near-record temperatures are expected for Sunday's New York City Marathon, according to the National Weather Service.

A partly sunny Saturday reached 74 degrees in Islip shortly after noon, breaking the record of 70 degrees from 2015, according to the weather service. The average high for Nov. 5 is 57 degrees.

Warmer-than-average temperatures will continue to stretch into the first full week of November, with highs in New York City expected to be in the low to mid-70s Sunday, meteorologist James Tomasini said — close to record highs set in 2015.

“The pattern we’re in, we have nice, warm southerly flow," Tomasini said. “We have high pressures off to our east and we have a southerly flow across the whole eastern U.S., transporting heat and moisture out here.”

Record high temperatures in New York City were set in 2015, when the thermometer reached a high of 74 degrees in Central Park and 75 at LaGuardia Airport. Records at Central Park go back to 1869 and to 1939 at LaGuardia.

On Long Island, temperatures also are poised to break record highs on a mostly cloudy Sunday, with the thermometer hovering in the low 70s, according to Tomasini. Islip’s record high for Nov. 6 was 69 degrees in 2015, Tomasini said.

In the evening, Sunday’s low will be around 61 degrees. There is a 30% chance of showers after 2 a.m. Monday.

The warm stretch will continue through Monday, with the sun expected to poke through cloudy skies, and temperatures rising to about degrees. It will drop to about 45 degrees Monday night.

And then on Tuesday, the temperatures will more seasonable, with a high of about 58 degrees, under sunny skies, the weather service said.