I didn’t think it was a bad morning going down to the bus stop. I timed it about perfect but I had to walk in the street rather than the sidewalks which are still full of snow. I’m sure by mid day they’ll have them clear. They are pretty good about those things in Delmar. 15 degrees and partly cloudy. There is a breeze but in my rush to the bus stop, I didn’t notice it much. Traffic seems to be moving along just fine in Delmar but I expect more delays in the city as there is no place to put all the snow until it’s hauled out to snow dumps. Going to be a cold day, this Ides of March, with the mercury only reaching 24 degrees by mid afternoon. Remember that the average high is 44 degrees for this part of March.
It’s always a bit entertaining to watch the bus driver navigate the snow covered, narrow city streets with cars parked an abandoned in random places. The traction control kicks in and out and we grind downtown. I’ve not felt any real skids and we are making good time. It must be a total bitch if your parked on street in this weather. Rough riding on all that packed snow but we are making decent progress downtown as the snow banks creeps up on the bus as things narrow heading downtown.
It might winter but tonight the sun will set at 7:02 pm with dusk around 7:30 pm, which is one minute and 10 seconds later than yesterday. Today will have 11 hours and 57 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 54 seconds over yesterday. Tomorrow marks 12 hours of day and darkness as calendar spring approaches next Tuesday.
Tonight will have a chance of snow showers, mainly before 1am. Areas of blowing snow. Cloudy, with a low of 12 degrees at 6am. 14 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around -5 at 6am; Breezy, with a west wind 17 to 23 mph, with gusts as high as 34 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. In 2016, it got down to 44 degrees with periods of rain and thunderstorm. The record low of 4 occurred back in 1980.
Today in 44 BC, Julius Caesar, Dictator of the Roman Republic, is stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus, and several other Roman senators on the Ides of March. And of course, that event gave the one hit wonder band that name.
I’m not sure they really needed to close the office yesterday, because they kept the roads passable and there was no white out conditions yesterday. I guess if we had a real blizzard with white out conditions it would have been a different case. Maybe fewer people on the roads and buses made things run better but honestly, I think that our megalomaniac governor just enjoys his power to shutdown the business of society at his finger tips. The governor if he so chooses has a lot of power to force businesses to close. And if we had whiteout conditions and people got stranded we know who would get blamed. I guess politicians get it from all sides.
Looking ahead, there are 5 weeks until the Average High is 60 when the sun will be setting at 7:42 pm with dusk at 8:12 pm. On that day in 2016, we had rain and temperatures between 65 and 44 degrees. We hit a record high of 92 back in 1976.