RI Long-Term Weather Forecast: Will Spring Bring The Heat?

Hungry for some weather news you can actually be optimistic about? The Weather Company's long-term forecast for the Northeast could be just what you're looking for.

Here's the skinny: The temperatures are expected to spike to well above average at the end of spring and start of summer. Until then, average or slightly above-average temperatures are expected through late spring.

"Mild conditions are expected overall in late-spring ... and that could be followed by a hot start to summer," Weather.com writes. Subscribe to your local Patch for news alerts and newsletters.

The warm trend expected in the early summer may mean a relatively cooler second half of summer, but recent "global-scale warming" may keep it hotter than usual.

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"Typical transitions from La Niña to El Niño conditions result in cooler summers overall, especially late; our forecast reflects this warmest-early, coolest-late idea, but is not particularly cool given the recent pronounced global-scale warming after the last historically-strong El Nino event along with the expected negative NAO conditions driven by historically-low Arctic sea ice levels," said Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist with The Weather Company.

"We think any big eastern heat will be more likely to occur earlier in the summer," Crawford said.

Here's a look at the average high/low temperatures for April, May and June, courtesy of Weather.com: