Bitter cold today on Long Island, after winter storm
Zaida Rinaldi, of East Moriches, bundles up against the cold at the Center Moriches Square shopping center on Saturday. Credit: Tom Lambui
There will be no white Christmas this year, but it will be a cold one as temperatures will remain below freezing through Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
As many Long Islanders are rebounding from a winter storm that brought power outages and flooding to the area Friday, the next challenge has arrived with a blast of arctic, subfreezing temperatures.
Weather service meteorologist David Stark, on Saturday afternoon, said "it will continue to be cold for the next couple of days."
The North Fork may see some flurries this weekend, he said, and temperatures could plunge into the single digits tonight with a wind chill below zero. Sunday will be warmer, with highs in the mid- to upper 20s.
Nassau County opened warming centers Saturday at Wantagh and Cantiague parks and round-the-clock at Mitchel Field in Garden City.
The Town of Huntington opened its warming center Saturday at the Clark Gillies Dix Hills Ice Rink, located at 575 Vanderbilt Parkway. It will remain open through midnight and reopen on Christmas Day from noon to midnight. No ice rink activities will be available at the facility, the town said.
Another concern remains patchy black ice.
PSEG Long Island outages peaked at more than 39,000 customers without power during the storm, the utility reported Saturday. About 34 customers were still affected Saturday evening.
The utility said heavy winds and driving rain toppled trees and downed wires to cause the outages. They said crews continued to work round the clock even as temperatures dipped below freezing to restore power.
Long Island Rail Road trains have been running mostly on or close to schedule.
The flight delays and cancellations that made for gnarly preholiday travel Friday continued on Saturday. By Saturday evening, of the 14 flights listed in and out of MacArthur airport, only four appeared to be on time. Six were canceled and six others were delayed.
Delays at MacArthur are storm-related, according to Caroline Smith, a spokeswoman for Islip Town, which owns and runs the airport.
Other regional airports also reported departure delays, including an average of 29 minutes at Kennedy, 40 minutes at LaGuardia and 35 minutes at Newark, according to the website FlightAware.
Temperatures should begin to climb starting Sunday, with highs in the upper 20s before getting into the 30s on Monday and finally climbing above freezing on Tuesday, the weather service predicted.
With Brianne Ledda and Matthew Chayes
Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.
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