Slowly but surely we are climbing out of the deep and dark of winter. At this point average temperatures will be increasing about a degree each week, then will start accelerating as we get to mid-February as spring approaches. When March gets underway, days in the 40s will not be uncommon and by April many days may hit the fifties. It’s called spring, and it eventually thaws out.

In the evening, you will notice we are past the five PM sunset, with daylight growing to 10 hours a day by next week. Seven weeks out from now will be daylight savings time with it not getting pitch black until well into the seven o’clock hour.

Good afternoon! Mostly cloudy and 39 degrees in Delmar. There is a west breeze at 10 mph. The skies will clear around 6 pm. It’s been a pretty gray, but I spent sometime playing with some code for the blog, got a haircut and some time cleaning and painting. Made some new maps and content for the blog, and finished fixing some minor bugs I discovered with the roll out of the ChartJS plugin I wrote for the blog. I would go out hiking, but it’s kind of cool and gray, and with the crusty nasty snow, it’s not good for hiking or even skiing. Tomorrow, I do plan get out hiking somewhere tough. Been saving a lot of miles on my truck, not going that much this winter.

The sun will set at 5:04 pm with dusk around 5:34 pm, which is 1 minutes and 18 seconds later than yesterday. Days are getting longer for sure, especially in the evening — although some sun would be nice for sunset. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy conditions and 36 degrees. There will be a west-southwest breeze at 7 mph.

Tonight will be mostly cloudy, with a low of 26 degrees at 6am. 10 degrees above normal. South wind 6 to 8 mph. In 2016, it got down to 25 degrees with periods of snow. The record low of -10 occurred back in 1925.

Waxing Crescent Moon tonight with 9% illuminated. The moon will set around 8:01 pm. The First Quarter Moon is next Saturday with partly cloudy skies expected. The Full “Snow” Moon is in 2 weeks. The sun will rise at 7:11 am with the first light at 6:41 am, which is 57 seconds earlier then yesterday. Tonight will have 14 hours and 6 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 17 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a slight chance of snow showers between 11am and 4pm. Partly sunny, with a high of 37 degrees at 2pm. Six degrees above normal. South wind 7 to 9 mph becoming west in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had snow and a high of 38 degrees. The record high of 54 was set in 2002. 8.3 inches of snow fell back in 1990.

Finally decided to take action on the rust on my refrigerator in my apartment. I bought some primer and paint, and it seems like it is going to match close enough that my landlord will never know the refrigerator was painted. It’s coming out well and I only gotten primer on, it’s already looking very nice, almost restored to original conditions. Trying to do a very professional job, so even if it’s not perfect, it looks good without further inspection. The paint does stink though. The mildew problem I used to have in the kitchen — which is mostly gone after much concentrated bleach and lots of scrubbing — kind of did some damage to the finish. Figure it’s better painted then rusted.

Been working hard lately — a half hour a few times a week — to clean my apartment. I think I’m going to stay there for a few more years, and it’s better not to have it look so dirty and run down. The new vacuum cleaner and with some help from brush-in carpet cleaner, really is getting the stains out of the carpets and just reducing the dust load a lot. Little things, like dusting shelves make sure a big difference. No more cob webs either.. I occasionally have company over and it’s nice to have things looking nice.

Been wanting to move the USB port that powers my dash board camera and cellphone to a different place in my truck, hooked up to the same switch as the CB radio, but that has yet to happen. I did find the wire endings the other day, so I know where to splice in. I want to make sure I have better power source for the dash board camera, as sometimes I find I’ve been losing my dash camera recordings on backroads — and that’s where they are mos

In four weeks on February 25 the sun will be setting at 5:40 pm, which is 36 minutes later then today. In 2016 on that day, we had fog, rain, snow and temperatures between 58 and 33 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 37 and 20 degrees. The record high of 67 degrees was set back in 1976.

Looking ahead, Average High is 40 is in 5 weeks, Average High is 50 is in 2 months, April Fools Day is in 9 weeks and Arbor Day is in 3 months.