Long Island weather: Warm Thursday, Friday but a cooler weekend

The sun will shine on Long Islanders enjoying their final summer weekend while a tropical storm tracks far off into the Atlantic.

The “clouds and light rain that held temperatures down” on Wednesday should clear up by Thursday afternoon, meteorologist Bill Goodman with the National Weather Service's Upton office said. After a foggy morning, high temperatures are forecast to reach the upper 70s and even 80 degrees in some parts of the Island.

Friday will be even warmer and sunnier, with temperatures climbing high into the upper 70s or just above 80. But weekend high temperatures will be around 10 degrees cooler, the weather service said.

“We get a cold front dropping down from the north on Friday night,” Goodman said of the weekend temperature drop to highs just above 70 degrees.

Far offshore Wednesday morning, Tropical Storm Gabrielle formed in the Atlantic Ocean, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The storm was moving northwestward as of 5 p.m. Wednesday and was forecast to turn northward over the next few days.

It's “a little bit too early to know” whether the storm will whip up dangerous rip currents along the South Shore, Goodman said. He noted the storm is “forecast to take a track east of what Hurricane Erin did” last month.

“It might get close to Bermuda,” Goodman added. “That’s the only land area that has any concern.”