Good morning! Happy February! Tomorrow is the most important day of the year, Ground Hog Day! 🐻 Four weeks to March 🌨. That’s some news you can use! Partly sunny and negative one degrees in Delmar. Don’t be negative, very positive, warmer weather is in the forecast the next few days. Calm wind.There are 8.5 inches of snow on the ground. ☃ ️Things will start to thaw out at Sunday around 11 am. 🌡️

Definitely a cold morning today although the bright sun was quite pleasant. 😎 But definitely a cold start, I think it was around negative ten and it was clear that the heat downstairs was struggling to keep up.

Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 16 degrees at 3pm. 16 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around -9 at 8am; West wind 3 to 6 mph. A year ago, we had partly cloudy in the morning, which became mostly sunny by afternoon. The high last year was 39 degrees. The record high of 65 was set in 1989. 15.0 inches of snow fell back in 1898.❄

The sun will set at 5:09 pm with dusk around 5:39 pm, which is one minute and 19 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for mostly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 13 degrees. Almost toasty compared to the weather of recent. There will be a west breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 10 hours of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 23 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 1 degrees at 3am. 14 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around -6 at 1am; Light and variable wind. In 2018, we had cloudy in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 7 degrees. The record low of -18 occurred back in 1961.

Saturday will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a high of 31 degrees at 4pm. One degrees below normal, which is similiar to a typical day around January 30th. South wind 5 to 8 mph becoming west in the afternoon. A year ago, we had partly cloudy in the morning, which became mostly sunny by afternoon. The high last year was 34 degrees. The record high of 53 was set in 1981. 11.9 inches of snow fell back in 2015.❄

Looking ahead to Sunday, a slight chance of rain after 1pm, mixing with snow after 4pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 36. ⛅ Calm wind becoming south around 5 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 20%. Typical average high for the weekend is 32 degrees.

Woke up around 6 AM, decided that I was cold, so I ended up turning on the electric heat in my bedroom. I normally don’t but I was kind chilly as the gas heat downstairs wasn’t letting enough upstairs.💢 Hot water, while cold at first in the bathroom worked well. I was up early enough I could have taken the express bus downtown but I decided it was too cold to walk down there.

Yesterday’s commute home wasn’t too bad. 🚗🚙🚚🚛🚌Traffic was fairly light, I made it home and heated up some burritos then went over to John Wolcott’s house for a bit in Sheridan Hollow to continue sorting his papers. I ended up watching about an hour of Mary Paly’s film about her husband Bob Paley the Knickerbocker News photographer who captured much of the news photography in Albany during the 1960s.🎥 Definitely a dramatic time in Albany, kind of interesting to be there in the same room with probably the man who did more to preserve Albany’s history during the intervening decades since then.

Big Red despite sitting for five days started right up. With the days sunshine, the solar panel fully recharged the accessory battery giving the starting battery enough kick that the engine started like it was warm at negative two degrees tonight.🔋 The accessory battery was at 12.9 volts on meter in the truck cap at six o’clock. I had minimal problems getting it out of park, it seems to be less problematic when it’s around 0 than around 20. I am definitely glad I cleaned off the panel yesterday morning.

I guess it’s been cold outside but with work, some planning on avoiding the outdoors and buses that have been close to on-time the past few days I’ve not noticed the cold.❄ Granted I’ve worn my sweater in my office and in the days it’s been pretty pleasant with the sun radiating in on the south side windows in my office. Once again my Christmas cactus has been looking a bit sick again but then it perks up. I’m starting to think it got to dried out again or maybe it’s suffering from the root disease again. 🌾I’m really not sure. I guess if it doesn’t make it, I’ll make another pot of the spider plant as that is certainly healthy.

Bought some ant bait and stuck it on the counter and on the floor. The ants previously seemed to be gone, maybe because I’ve been more aggressive at cleaning the counter but I spotted a few last evening. 🐜 None this morning though. I don’t know, hopefully this will help. I also got fabric superglue to fix my ski boots so hopefully I can enjoy some skiing on Sunday. Depends on the weather.

In the mail yesterday I got the replacement board for the headphone jack on my laptop so that should be fully fixed by the weekend so I won’t have to always carry around the external USB audio dongle. 🎧 Shouldn’t be a difficult repair and it only cost me $12 for a tested used board. I also got two more HC – 06 bluetooth modules, one which I plan to use as a dedicated communications channel between the LED lamp above my bed and the color temperature controlled LED lamp across my bedroom for better virtual sunrises and control of the light in my room.♒ I was originally going to use the built-in Bluetooth of the esp32 but I wasn’t sure how was it would be to have multiple Bluetooth connections from that one device.

Made waffles with blueberries this morning and lots of coffee. ☕ Nice and toasty by the time I got out of bed and sat at my desk looking out of the frost covered window. Waffles were good, I probably spent a good half hour just looking out at the cold. Made it in decent time to the bus stop, not too much of a wait which was good as a I left my hat and gloves in the office. 🚏

In four weeks on March 1 the sun will be setting at 5:45 pm,🌄 which is 36 minutes and 2 seconds later then today. In 2018 on that day, we had partly cloudy skies and otherwise mild conditions with some snow showers early and temperatures between 50 and 35 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 39 and 21 degrees. The record high of 66 degrees was set back in 2017.

Looking ahead, March 🌨 is a month away, Ides of March ✝ is in 6 weeks, April Fools Day 🤡 is in 2 months, May 🕊 is in 3 months, Memorial Day Weekend Starts 🏕️ is in 16 weeks, June 🍹 is in 4 months, July 🏊🏿 is in 5 months, Dog Days of Summer 🌻 is in 22 weeks and August 🌻 is in 6 months.