Governor Spitzer said the state is closely watching the weather to ensure that the subways systems are prepared if another storm hits tomorrow, as meteorologists are predicting.

Speaking at a health care clinic on Manhattan’s West Side this morning, Mr. Spitzer seemed relieved that the sun was out today, but struck a somewhat desperate, albeit lighthearted, note when ask what the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would do in the event of another heavy rainfall.

“The sun is shining,” he said. “We are sending the blowers up there,” to disperse the cloud cover.

“We are watching the weather system,” he said, adding that if the rainfall comes with adequate notice there are some steps that the MTA can take to fortify the system. He said putting plywood over the drainage grates would have been one way the MTA could have prepared for yesterday’s storm.

“Would that have prevented a shutdown? I don’t know and I don’t think anybody knows yet, but we are asking the very hard questions.”

His comments came as New Yorkers were still reeling from a crippling of the subway system yesterday that left commuters stranded and traveling multiple hours to work.

The governor, who has charged the MTA with investigating the situation over the next 30 days, said there was “clearly a breakdown” in the area of weather readiness in what the meteorological sources know, what they conveyed, or what the MTA did with the information it got.

Mayor Bloomberg, who appeared with the governor for an announcement about health insurance, said that while “nobody is satisfied with the MTA’s performance” the bottom line is that the subway system is “usually pretty reliable and most days when it rains you should still do it.”

“There is no reason not to expect the MTA tomorrow to do the same job that they usually do,” he said, referring to the possible rainstorm.

But many commuters are still expressing an eroded confidence in both the city’s aging subway infrastructure and the MTA ability to handle it and communicate disruptions to passengers. And a pending storm seems very much to be on the minds of passengers and elected officials.

The speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn, joked that “being a meteorologist” isn’t one of her responsibilities as leader of the legislature, but that she “certainly hopes there isn’t a big storm in the next few days.”

She said New Yorkers had a right to be angry by the MTA’s poor performance, but said if there is another storm in the next they will be more prepared:

“The fact that we’re even talking about the possibility of a storm in the next 24 hours means there is greater warning than there was regarding yesterday’s storm.”

When asked whether the city should be investing in new subways lines such as the Second Avenue line or the extension of the No. 7 train while the current system is in such fragile shape, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a member of the transportation committee in the House of Representatives, said, “we should not have to rob one to pay for the other.”