Good evening! Cloudy and 36 degrees in Delmar. There is a south-southeast breeze at 9 mph. The skies will clear Wednesday around 6 am. A big week is ahead of me so I’ll keep this post brief. 

Sunday night dinner was nice at my parents house house. Meatball riggis which should not be confused with meatball doggies. Inside joke or autocorrect on the phone. Pushed forward some internal updates to the blog and uploaded new maps and posts. Did my wash. Washed Big Red and bought some supplies at Walmart. Hopefully we are done with the road salt and I’ll keep Big Red out of the thick mud for a few days or hours. I’m sure I’ll be back hosing off Big Red sooner than later in the frigid cold weather. 

Tonight will rain, mainly after 11pm. Patchy fog after 3am. Low of 36 degrees at 10pm. Four degrees above normal. South wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. In 2016, it got down to 40 degrees under mostly cloudy skies. The record low of 11 occurred back in 1975.

Waning Crescent Moon tonight with 6% illuminated. The moon will rise around 5:09 am. The New Moon is on Tuesday night with showers expected. The Full “Pink” Moon is on Tuesday, April 11th. The sun will rise at 6:46 am with the first light at 6:18 am, which is one minute and 45 seconds earlier than yesterday. Tonight will have 11 hours and 28 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 53 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will rain some more, mainly before 1pm. Patchy fog before 1pm. High of 51 degrees at 5pm. Two degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 46 at 5pm. South wind 6 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies and a high of 58 degrees. The record high of 78 was set in 1998. 6.7 inches of snow fell back in 1959.

Over the weekend I’ve been reading more about off grid living technology. I’m fascinated by all the low voltage electricity, especially now that there is so much LED 12 volt lighting, especially those strips available. I think those manufactured unfinished cabins where you have to do the insulation and wiring yourself is quite neat because if you’re willing to live simply off grid  there is no need for high voltage wiring, plumbing and complicated infrastructure that most modern houses have. People save a lot of money this way, especially if you don’t need a lot of stuff and are interested in your energy consumption. 

Right now, a split verdict on next weekend. Saturday, rain and snow likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 46. Yuck, it’s April. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Sunday, a chance of snow showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 52. Chance of precipitation is 30%. That’s more reasonable. Maybe I can finally hook up that low voltage disconnect and the new power wire to the truck cap. Typical average high for the weekend is 52 degrees. 

In four weeks on April 23 the sun will be setting at 7:47 pm, which is 31 minutes and 45 seconds later then tonight. In 2016 on that day, we had mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 64 and 42 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 62 and 40 degrees. The record high of 87 degrees was set back in 2007.

Looking ahead, Palm Sunday is in 2 weeks, Easter is in 3 weeks, Mother’s Day is in 7 weeks, Memorial Day Weekend is in 2 months and Father’s Day is in 12 weeks.