Party pooper: Mother Nature’s winds and rain threaten NYC Memorial Day coming out plans

The good news this Memorial Day weekend is that most coronavirus restrictions have been lifted just in time for lockdown-weary New Yorkers to get out from behind their laptops and celebrate the big holiday.

The bad news is that somebody forgot to tell Mother Nature.

A cruel jokester that weather maven must be to wait until what some might call Pandemic Emancipation Day to saddle the region with strong winds and steady rain.

Really? A storm? This weekend?

That’s what forecasters are predicting for this weekend’s official salute to summer — weather that feels more like mid-October.

“People from my work were going to go to Coney Island,” said Nicole Santana, 20, who works for Cadogan Tate, an art moving and storage firm in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. “But they were cancelling the plans because of the weather. They were excited, but now…”

Now, they’ll have to hear tales of her visit home to Puerto Rico, where she will spend Memorial Day, which happens to fall this year on her birthday.

“It’s summer all year there,” she gloated.

While Santana is soaking in the sun New York-area residents will don hoodies and windbreakers for temperatures that could dip as low as 50 degrees under cloudy skies that will likely soak the region with rain for three straight days.

Weather watchers said motorists should expect even more holiday travel delays than normal, as well as poor visibility and dangerous conditions at times in the heaviest rain.

Memorial Day itself looks better for grillers and beach lovers. Most of the rain should clear out by Monday, and temperatures are expected to soar into the 70s.

The bad weather won’t ruin everybody’s party.

Elvis Castillo, 32, said his long-awaited get-together will kick off rain or shine.

“I’m going to my friend’s for a barbecue,” Castillo said. “A bunch of friends are getting together. We always do this on holidays when people don’t work. We always do a barbecue, we drink a few beers, and that’s it.”

Castillo said about 15 people will gather at a house in Rosedale, Queens free from restrictions that kept most of them quarantined for much of the past 14 months. There, they will regale each other tales from their native Honduras, and celebrate the friendship that sustained them through the year.

Optimist Emelina Menjivar, 63, said rain and high winds are the least of her concerns after a year of coronavirus confinement.

“We’re not going to change the plans,” a defiant Menjivar said. “No. We’re going to be grateful and celebrate. We’re going to go to the park.”

“We need the water,” she said. “And maybe it won’t rain all day, God willing.”

AAA predicts that more travelers will hit the road this Memorial Day than last year — but that traffic, which will include more than 37 million people who travel 50 miles or more from home, still won’t hit pre-pandemic levels.

Last year, as the nation grappled with the coronavirus pandemic, only 23 million traveled for Memorial Day, the lowest since AAA began recording travel trends in 2000.

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This time last year, some New Jersey beaches were open for business, but with a list of restrictions as long as the shore line: No special events, no playgrounds, no rides and no arcades.

This year, shore towns said beach badges were selling like funnel cakes as they dropped capacity limits put in place last summer to keep people socially distanced on the sand. Ocean City was closing in on $1 million worth of beach badge sales by the end of April, the earliest the city ever reached that mark.

The lifting of outdoor capacity limits has cleared the way for large-scale concerts to resume at venues including the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, which lists upcoming shows including Luke Bryan, Lady A, and the Jonas Brothers.

“I think people are just so excited to get down to the beach,” Dillon Mullock, general manager of the Chalfonte Hotel in Cape May, told the Daily News. “People will be so happy to be unrestricted that they’ll just be excited to be here.”

Mullock said hotel staff will still wear masks in customer service areas, though this year they won’t bear the logo of the historic hotel. A contractor couldn’t get them printed up in time, Mullock said.

“It’s certainly nice having this big group come in,” Mullock said. “A lot of people have added on a day or two because they’re able to work from the beach.”