Good morning! Happy Tuesday. Two weeks to December 🎄. Cloudy and 30 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁️ There is a south-southwest breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The skies will clear around 5 pm.

This is the middle of November 🦃 so cool and cloudy weather is to be expected. 🌥 Out for my morning walk 🚶🏻, and it’s cool and gray but generally pleasant for the second half of November. A week from today will be the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 🦃. Listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s Cloudy.

Not AN ILLEGAL! At least when it comes to my truck. I got my new registration sticker on my truck 📜 and my truck passed inspection but I have to go back to the shop for the sticker later in the week. Annoying that they haven’t gotten the stickers after the November 3rd rush but they said it would take two minutes to get the inspection finished later in the week but everything looked good. At any rate, it buys me time ⌚. At some point I’ll have to make a decision about the tires and probably the worn struts and the wheel bearing that I think is going although it might just be the wear noise of the tires.

Been doing a lot of research on internet options for January should the pandemic continue along for remote work 💻 from home. I am thinking if I can reduce my data service on my phone 📱 I can cover at least some of the cost. I just don’t think it’s practical to work in my truck from the library when it’s negative 20 out and I don’t want to screw up my good job because I’m so damn stubborn about technology. 🙄My phone plan expires in December, so I could cut down the data plan to save money there. I’ll probably have to reduce my monthly savings goals but I don’t want to kill the golden cow 🐮. At any rate, I would get the most basic and cheapest plan if I had to get it.

Plus it would be a heck of a lot easier than using the USB cable 🔌 to transfer files 📂 between my phone 📲 and the laptop 💻 whenever I need a file between the two. It works but it’s kind of cumbersome to say the least. Plus then I could build smart 🧠 devices using microprocessors to pull data from the internet. On the other hand, I would miss my walks to the library and the park 🏞 to get podcasts and other files.

I am working on a new chart 📊 uploader for the blog that will allow me to directly upload CSV files saved from Open Office or Microsoft Excel and use them as graphs on the blog. That means I can create new graphs directly from my phone or any other computer 🖥 I may be on.

Those Kinzua and Allegheny Reservoir aerial photos 🗺 I’ve been going through are quite interesting, I am going to do some more work on them and eventually post some historical comparisons. 📚 Neat stuff.

Today will have a chance of rain and snow before 10am, then a chance of rain between 10am and 5pm, then a slight chance of rain and snow after 5pm. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a high of 42 degrees at 2pm. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around November 29th. Southwest wind 5 to 10 mph becoming northwest in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Little or no snow accumulation expected. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 38 degrees. The record high of 73 was set in 1928. 2.8 inches of snow fell back in 1992.❄

Today I decided to do the virtual meeting route from the library 💻 rather than go downtown in part because I feel a bit congested in my nose. 👃🏻 I’m sure it’s just allergies now that windows are closed but everybody else will believe it’s the Corona 👾 even though I haven’t been drinking 🍻 at all lately and have been mostly anti-social. 🗣️

Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:41 am with sun having an altitude of 28.3° from the due south horizon (-42.6° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 11.2 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:49 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (237°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (245°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:32 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 13 seconds with dusk around 5:01 pm, which is 50 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Crescent 🌒 Moon in the southwest (218°) at an altitude of 13° from the horizon, 231,656 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:37 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 39 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 10 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 40 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 4 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 23 degrees at 5am. Eight degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 10th. Northwest wind 8 to 10 mph. In 2019, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 32 degrees. The record low of 10 occurred back in 1972.

Tomorrow is going to be bitterly cold ❄. I am not prepared for winter ☃️ but I have to admit that for the morning walk and evening walk 🧣I wore my heavy Carhartt. I will have to leave the heat turned up tonight before bed so things don’t get too cold by mid night.

A picture perfect weekend on tap. 😎 Saturday, partly sunny, with a high near 53. Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 55. Typical average high for the weekend is 46 degrees.

This weekend I will probably stay in town, 🏡 just because next weekend after Thanksgiving I might do a three day Buy Nothing Weekend trip to the Adirondacks. Sure I could probably work remotely from the library on that following in Speculator but the sun sets early this time of year. And I don’t want to drive home from the Adirondacks during the rut in the darkness.

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until December 🎄 when the sun will be setting at 4:23 pm with dusk at 4:54 pm. On that day in 2019, we had snow and temperatures between 28 and 17 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 41 degrees. We hit a record high of 67 back in 1934.

Good morning! After the long weekend, the work week returns. The good news: four weeks to Christmas. That’s a Monday, so it’s also a long weekend. Mostly cloudy and 39 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a west breeze at 14 mph. The skies will clear around 11 am. Cool but clear later on today.

Today will be mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming sunny, with a high of 40 degrees at 11am. Three degrees below normal. Breezy, with a northwest wind 14 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph. A year ago, we had cloudy skies with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 42 degrees. The record high of 66 was set in 1896. 4.8 inches of snow fell back in 1940.

The sun will set at 4:24 pm with dusk around 4:55 pm, which is 27 seconds earlier than yesterday. At sunset, look for mostly clear conditions and 36 degrees. Breezy, 17 mph breeze from the west-northwest. Today will have 9 hours and 21 minutes of daytime, a decrease of one minute and 35 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly clear, with a low of 18 degrees at 5am. 10 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around 13 at 5am; Northwest wind 5 to 9 mph becoming calm in the evening. In 2016, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 20 degrees. The record low of 6 occurred back in 1951.

I ended up catching the later bus to work today, because my sinuses were really plugged when I first got up, and struggled to get moving this morning. I think I will be fine today at work. I don’t know if was coming in from the cold weather that plugged them up or if I picked up another bug along the way. I guess I should have stayed home but if I stayed home every time I felt a little sick from my mildewy apartment, I would never be at work. 

It was a nice trip this past weekend, and by taking NY 30 to Delanson Church Road, past Mariaville to US 20 I avoided almost all of the holiday traffic coming home. I wish I could have had somewhat better weather but indeed, it’s late November. You can’t expect real warm and sunny days this time of year. I’m still hopeful that later in the next few weeks I can get back up north. So far next weekend looks pretty nice but things can change. Next Monday might be a good one to take off to extend the weekend. If the forecast remains true for the next seven days. 

I accidentally posted a bunch of pictures yesterday, that were supposed to be posted over time. There is a bug in the code of my blog, Still I have several more to go through and post over time.  I think I made some nice videos and will have more maps and interactive content to post this week. People complain that I whine too much about our country going to all hell in a hand basket but I don’t care. Hopefully with winter coming I can dig through some data and make up more maps and charts. I’ve been busy lately, and spending more time working on electronics then coming up with interesting infographics. 

Today is cyber Monday but I’ve not seen any M.2 SSD drives at an affordable price for my laptop, at least not at the price I want. I’ve heard there is a real or imaginary shortage of flash memory, which is keeping prices up. Plus with my smartphone and growing interest in electronics, I use my laptop less and less, and I’m not really sure how much faster QGIS would be on an SSD as it’s mostly CPU intensive once booted.

That said, I’m looking at electronics soldering irons as my soldering gun will be much too hot for electronic work. I also want to buy some perf board and non-lead solder and solder wick to start permanently assembling my electronics projects. I’m going to master non-lead solder as that’s the future even if it’s harder to work with as it doesn’t flow as well. Plus it’s less toxic when the electronics are discarded and burnt. 

Looking ahead, there are 4 weeks until Christmas when the sun will be setting at 4:27 pm with dusk at 4:59 pm. On that day in 2016, we had drizzle then mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 43 and 21 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 33 degrees. We hit a record high of 66 back in 1889.