Good evening! Mostly cloudy and 61 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a south breeze at 14 mph with gusts up to 24 mph. The dew point is 45 degrees. The skies will clear tomorrow around 5 am. Due to the injury to my hand, I expect this note to be quite short. 

Tonight will be scattered showers, mainly before 11pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low of 56 degrees at 3am. 17 degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 52 at 5am. South wind 10 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. In 2016, it got down to 35 degrees under partly clear skies. The record low of 22 occurred back in 1981.

Waning Gibbous Moon tonight with 69% illuminated. The moon will rise around 10:05 pm. The Last Quarter Moon is on Wednesday night with chance of rain expected. The Full “Flower” Moon is on Wednesday, May 10th. The sun will rise at 6:12 am with the first light at 5:42 am, which is one minute and 37 seconds earlier than yesterday. Tonight will have 10 hours and 32 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 45 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 3pm. Partly sunny, with a high of 81 degrees at 4pm. 22 degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 53 at 7am. Southwest wind 11 to 17 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. A year ago, we had partly sunny skies and a high of 66 degrees. The record high of 91 was set in 2012. 5.3 inches of snow fell back in 1983.

While it will be hot and relatively dry tomorrow, we got a reasonably good soaking rain this afternoon when I went up to Thatcher Park to top off my new accessory battery and get out for a walk. Probably would have been good fishing had I hit up a trout steam but I kind of wanted to stretch my legs. Very muddy though at Thatcher Park, at least hiking in the fields off of Ryan Road. Not a big wash out but after an hour and a half of hiking I was quite wet. 

Getting ready for camping. Almost got the truck wired up. Bought a new Everstart Deep Cycle Marine battery, and it should hopefully last a long time now that all of the attached load is hooked to the low voltage disconnect that drops the load below 12.1 volts. Not a real fancy battery and that Group 24 size is small but I don’t have a lot of room under the hood of my truck.  The new truck cap switches are installed although most of the lights aren’t hooked up yet as it got dark out this evening. The new switches are great, easy to use and reliable big buttons. I have the dimmer hooked up and three of the six switches will be controlled by the dimmer. The dimmer works fairly good although a lowest settings are a bit hard to reach and seem to have a somewhat noticeable flicker. All of the white LEDs will be on the dimmer. One dimmer controlled switch is intentionally unused for future expansion. With the 8 gage wire, I have the capacity to run 60 amps or 720 watts of load in the truck cap but I imagine that’s overkill but I wanted to use large enough wire for all future needs. I do plan to add a 12 volt fan this summer to keep cool in the hot weather. I have a total of four USB charging ports now in the truck cap plus two cigarette style outlets. I should be pretty set for lighting and power in the cap at camp. With the under voltage protection with the battery, I expect a long life for the battery. 

Got to the transfer station, cleaned out my refrigerator and now my truck is free of bottles and cans so tomorrow I can put the camping gear back in it. Trash cans are empty so I won’t have to go anytime soon especially if I burn the papers starting fires at camp. It will be nice to be out camping again. I’m not sure how great the weather will be next week for my trip but I’ll take an abbreviated trip. Also got my haircut today. I like shorter hair when camping as it doesn’t get so dirty. 

My hands are so sore and cracked. It’s not just from the cuts. I’ve been using lotion with limited luck. I don’t know what to say. I guess my skin has just gotten dried out but I’m sure stripping and cutting all that wire hasn’t helped. Oh well. 

In four weeks on May 13 the sun will be setting at 8:09 pm, which is 31 minutes and 16 seconds later then tonight. In 2016 on that day, we had fog, rain and temperatures between 64 and 52 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 69 and 46 degrees. The record high of 86 degrees was set back in 2004.

Looking ahead, Earth Day is Next Saturday. Assuming that the weather cooperates that will be my last night camping. 

Good morning! Happy Saturday. Finally the weekend! Next Saturday is Earth Day. Mostly sunny and 36 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a south breeze at 5 mph. Enjoy the sunshine before it all clouds up. It’s a cold start this morning but it will warm up and cloud up later. I have a pretty busy day on tap. 

Today will have a chance of showers, mainly after 5pm. Increasing clouds, with a high of 67 degrees at 4pm. Nine degrees above normal. South wind 5 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had sunny skies and a high of 64 degrees. The record high of 86 was set in 2003. 2.4 inches of snow fell back in 2014.

The sun will set at 7:38 pm with dusk around 8:07 pm, which is one minute and 9 seconds later than yesterday. At the park last night I was noticing how much truly longer the days have gotten. Well after eight it’s not pitch black. Today will have 13 hours and 26 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 46 seconds over yesterday.

Busy day on tap. Transfer station next for the bottles and cans, Easter breakfast at my parents house with the niece, back home, haircut, then to Latham to visit West Marine to look at deep cycle group 24 batteries like people use for their trolling motors on their boats or as I use for powering accessories on my truck. If I don’t like their options then I’m going to get an Everstart Group 24 deep cycle marine from Walmart. The one I used to have had great capacity until after three years I ducked up the chemistry by repeatingly over discharging the battery. 

I also here Dicks Sporting Goods has 22lr ammunition on sale and as we all know you can’t have enough of it, although it’s gotten a lot easier to find in stores since TRUMP has become PRESIDENT and people have stopped being such hoarders. Or the great Obama ammunition conspiracy has ended or something like that. Because I can only waste 7 or maybe 10 rounds at a time in Western New York because banana magazines are banned, it doesn’t disappear quite as quickly as it might if I lived in other mote free states. 

Tonight will have a chance of showers, mainly before 10pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low of 55 degrees at 1am. 15 degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 53 at 5am. South wind 13 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2016, it got down to 35 degrees under partly clear skies. The record low of 22 occurred back in 1981.

As previously noted, next Saturday is Earth Day when the sun will be setting at 7:46 pm with dusk at 8:16 pm. I’ll try not to burn too much plastic on Earth Day or if I do, I’ll at least make sure to have a hot fire. I plan to be camping after all and those styrofoam plates and plastic packaging need to be kept out of the landfill as they don’t rot.  I also plan to sling a lot of mud with my big jacked up truck as it spring time and those roads are muddy all shit. And maybe shoot off some of that 22lr and get me some trout for dinner from the Deer River. On that day in 2016, we had rain and temperatures between 76 and 58 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 61 degrees. We hit a record high of 86 back in 1985.