December 15, 2016 Evening

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Good evening! Light snow and 17 degrees in Albany. There is a west breeze at 11 mph. The current wind chill is 4. The roads are mostly just wet but watch for a glaze on bridges and the secondaries. 

Not having a winter coat yet, I am totally undressed for the weather. But between my smartphone giving me real time bus info and running out just im time for the bus, I’ve been fine. Of course if the bus slides off the road and I’m stuck in the cold, I’ll be screwed. But the hot seat on the bus is fine tonight. I like stretching out on it because the 5 pm is less popular than earlier busses. 

Tonight will have on and off snow showers. Cloudy during the early evening, then gradual clearing, with a low of 4 degrees at 5am. 17 degrees below normal. In other words, cold arctic blast like.  Wind chill values as low as -13. Windy, with a northwest wind 24 to 29 mph decreasing to 11 to 16 mph after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 48 mph. Fast enough that they can give it a speeding ticket on the Delaware Turnpike. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. 

In 2015, it got down to 35 degrees under mostly cloudy skies. More than thirty degrees warmer. But nowhere near record breaking cold. The record low of -11 occurred back in 1917. The sun will rise at 7:19 am with the first light at 6:47 am, which is 42 seconds later then yesterday.

Traffic is all backed up going northbound but is moving well southbound on the old 787. Assuming that the roads aren’t bad in the suburbs, I should get home relatively quickly. 

Tonight I got to get to the store and buy pasta to make the dish for tomorrow holiday potluck at work. I’m not that worried about the roads because I live in the store a few miles from the grocery. After rush hour, there shouldn’t be much traffic. Cleaned off the truck earlier in the week.  

Looking ahead, Obama’s Last Day is in 5 weeks, Ground Hog Day is in 7 weeks, Ides of March is in 3 months and Start of June is in 24 weeks. I think I’m most states in America you can get pregnant tonight and still get a legal abortion before the start of June. In other words, June is a long ways off. 

December 15, 2016 8 AM Update

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Kind of a somber morning as we remember the lives lost in the Silver Bridge Disaster, 49 years ago today. Such a tragedy of enormous proportions in Point Pleasant, WV, especially only a little more than a week before Christmas. If anything good came out of it, we rethought how we inspected and built bridges so fracture critical bridges are no longer built and older bridges are throughly inspected yearly or even every six months if risk factors are high enough. There are many tragedies in American history but the timing of the complete failure of Silver Bridge is just so tragic. It just sad to think about all those young kids who grew up with out parents and grandparents due to the bridge failure.

Radio announcer keeps insisting its so cold outside, but I don’t know. I left the heat turned up to sixty last night and the thermostat always overrides up stairs were my bedroom is. So it didn’t feel cold inside as it usually is due to me normally turning the heat down to 50 before bed. It was a quick sprint out to the local bus stop and under the blue skies, it didn’t feel cold. Let’s talk about the cold when the mercury drops a few more degrees tomorrow.

The actual mercury is about 18 degrees in Delmar. In non sheltered locations there is a west breeze at 15 mph. That put into a big fancy formula makes for a wind chill around 4. Probably colder downtown with the wind. Honestly I didn’t notice the cold that much, but I certainly didn’t linger outdoors today. Later on today we will climb maybe a degree with continued sunny skies except when snow showers interrupt the sun. Breezy, with a west wind 15 to 20 mph decreasing to 9 to 14 mph in the afternoon.

That said, today is pretty cold compared to last year, when we had record breaking weather. A year ago, we had rain and a high of 61 degrees. Highest temperature ever recorded for December 15th in Albany. 8.2 inches of snow fell back in 1968. The sun will set at 4:23 pm with dusk around 4:55 pm, which is 17 seconds later than yesterday. Today will have 9 hours and 3 minutes of daylight, a decrease of 24 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have a chance of snow showers, mainly before 9pm. Mostly cloudy during the early evening, then gradual clearing, with a low of 2 degrees at 6am. 20 degrees below normal. Wind chill values as low as -14. Windy, with a northwest wind 21 to 26 mph decreasing to 11 to 16 mph after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 47 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. In 2015, it got down to 35 degrees under mostly cloudy skies. The record low of -11 occurred back in 1917.

On Obama’s Last Day in 5 weeks, the sun will be setting at 4:53 pm with dusk at 5:23 pm. On that day in 2016, we had snow and temperatures between 23 and 13 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 30 degrees. We hit a record high of 62 back in 1929.