November 29, 2016 Evening

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Good evening! Light rain and 52 degrees in Albany. There is a south-southeast breeze at 6 mph. The dew point is 49 degrees. 0.09 inches of rain is expected before it ends around 9 pm. 

Definitely a wet evening, but I guess it could have been snow had it been quite bit colder. I’m fine with waiting for snow for a while. 

Tonight will have periods of rain, mainly before 8pm. Areas of fog before 9pm, then areas of fog after 11pm. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, with a low of 41 degrees at 5am. 14 degrees above normal. Southwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2015, it got down to 22 degrees under partly clear skies. The record low of -10 occurred back in 1875.

Our weekend continues to look very nice with lots of sun and seasonable temperatures. Saturday, partly sunny, with a high near 42. Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 42. Typical average high for the weekend is 41 degrees. Still chewing over possibly going to the Adirondacks this weekend. There may be quite a bit of snow up there. Maybe dig out the cross country skis? Don’t need to camp that day far back in the woods. I don’t have a lot of vacation time to burn up left in the year for an extended weekend trip. 

In four weeks on December 27 the sun will be setting at 4:28 pm, which is 6 minutes later then tonight. In 2015 on that day, we had rain and temperatures between 51 and 35 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 32 and 17 degrees. The record high of 60 degrees was set back in 1895.

Traffic is quite backed up heading north out of the city tonight. I’m glad I’m not heading that way, although traffic is quite heavy going southbound too. Probably the rain and drivers either taking their time or more likely getting into crashes. I’ll make it home eventually. 

What gets me is all the motorists who have smart phones in their laps. If you’re going to have a phone, have it mounted by the windshield so at least you can be seeing what’s ahead of you when traffic starts moving again. Set your phone up so messages either pop up in big letters for an extended period of time or read to you. Only briefly touch your phone with your pinkey only rarely, don’t type detailed messages. Common sense and moderation is lacking in our society today. Next up, Donald Trump. 

At one level, I’m hopeful that Trump can change things in our country. But he keeps saying such stupid things on Twitter. I wish that the president on down could be more respectful. Maybe Trump will be at least successful about limiting the cost of health insurance in our country. Like many Americans even after selling back time, it seems like I’m paying more and more insurance I only occasionally use. I wish he would be a reasonable voice on climate change like Obama has been, unlike some liberals who have gone full nutcase on climate change. We need to take action on climate change but we shouldn’t destroy the economy or what is nice in the world. The ends don’t justify the means. 

It’s Tuesday evening and I’m dead tired. I stayed up too late last night watching the PBS Newshour. I need to a battery for my TV remote, so I can tape the earlier showing and not be staying up to 11 pm. I feel it’s important to keep up with the news of the day. I really want to learn more about Donald Trump as so much of the man is a mystery to me. 

Back in the map making business. I hope to post some new maps to the blog this evening so stay tuned. 

November 29, 2016 Morning

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Good morning! Happy Square Dance Day. Left, left, back, right, do it again again. Dark morning, now with rain on and off, with temperatures around 45 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a south-southeast breeze at 14 mph. Rain tomorrow. The skies will clear Thursday around noontime and it looks like a nice weekend on tap, at least for early December.

Rain is expected today. High of 53 degrees at 1pm. Fairly warm for late November, 11 degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 48 at 2pm. South wind 10 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies and a high of 41 degrees. Pretty much like today but maybe slightly less wet. The record high of 66 was set in 2005. 3.3 inches of snow fell back in 1945.

The sun will set at 4:23 pm with dusk around 4:54 pm, which is 22 seconds earlier than yesterday. Today will have 9 hours and 18 minutes of daylight, a decrease of 1 minutes and 27 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have a chance of rain before 7pm, then a chance of showers between 7pm and 10pm. Patchy fog. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, with a low of 42 degrees at 5am. A mild evening, 15 degrees above normal. Southeast wind around 6 mph becoming calm after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2015, it got down to 22 degrees under partly clear skies. The record low of -10 occurred back in 1875. A few years before my time.

There are 2 months until My 34th Birthday when the sun will be setting at 5:06 pm with dusk at 5:36 pm. The average high temperature is 32 degrees, with a record high of 61 in 1895. Winter is cold. I guess I should look forward to getting a year old, but it sure is a cold time of the year. But I’m sure I’ll still get out camping once or twice in January.

Went down to the library and then for the evening. I have my PostGIS database almost back up and running although for some reason when I imported it didn’t create a GIST index against the geography. So it’s running slowly. I think I may have forgotten to install hstore first which is part of the problem. So I’m going to rebuild that table. I updated the wetlands maps for several counties that relatively recently updated their maps. I fixed waterbodies so no longer are the they divided by counties, with ugly side-effects in maps for bodies of water that cross multiple counties.

I think I walked around 8 miles yesterday. Which was good, because with this dark morning and the threat of rain, I did not take the express bus, but instead to the local to work. So I didn’t get my mile walk down to the bus. I still will walk during lunch, so that will give me 2-3 miles plus if I walk down to the library and back that’s 1.2 miles. Throw in the evening walk, and I’ll be over five. It all depends on if the weather holds off.