As we head into the month of August, we are now sixteen weeks away from Thanksgiving. The warmest time of year has come and gone, and we will see a slow but steady drop in average temperatures, although certainty we can get some quite hot days through mid-September. In another week, we will have sunsets before 8 PM.

Note: Last year’s highs and lows, have been updated through June 30, 2017.

Good morning! It’s Direct Drive of the Week, aka Thursday. Three weeks to State Fair Opens. Mostly cloudy and 66 degrees in Delmar. Calm wind. The dew point is 62 degrees. The skies will clear around 9 am.

This morning is rather cloudy and humid but it seems the clouds are helping to keep things a bit cooler. I finally made it down to the express bus, although it was a bit close for a while when I hit the alarm reset button on my phone and instead of awaking for the seven AM news I awoke at 7:20 news break.

Today will have a chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 3pm. Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. Partly sunny, with a high of 82 degrees at 3pm. Two degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 67 at 4pm. Calm wind becoming south around 5 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. It was somewhat humid. The high last year was 83 degrees. The record high of 97 was set in 1975.

The sun will set at 8:12 pm with dusk around 8:43 pm, which is one minute and 13 seconds earlier than yesterday. At sunset, look for partly cloudy conditions and 76 degrees. The dew point will be 68 degrees. There will be a south breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 14 hours and 21 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 15 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have a chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 2am. Mostly cloudy, with a low of 70 degrees at 4am. Eight degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 68 at 8pm. South wind around 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. In 2016, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 59 degrees. The record low of 46 occurred back in 1966.

Not that there was much news of interest besides Trump’s latest follies. I know that the president is an avowed racist but with such a shortage of labor in many industries, and knowing how hard immigrants work, restricting immigration even more seems stupid. If we are concerned about overpopulation, we should look at expanding the death penalty to cover all felonies. That will remove criminals from the population.

For the past few weeks I’ve been looking at color changing light bulbs so I can have dim red or orange light in my bedroom at night and blue and white light in the morning. But so far none of the bulbs I’ve looked at seem to fill the sweet spot, although there are a lot of choices on Ebay for sure.

I think I will stay in town this weekend. Saturday still looks pretty questionable and even though clearing may occur earlier on Saturday, the woods will be quite wet from the rain expected Friday into Saturday. Sunday is going to be quite cool. I have to decide how I will replace or repair my broken kayak paddle this weekend.

As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until State Fair Opens when the sun will be setting at 7:41 pm with dusk at 8:11 pm. On that day in 2016, we had patches of fog, partly cloudy skies and temperatures between 85 and 57 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 79 degrees. We hit a record high of 95 back in 1947.

I am still thinking we will have a big warm up by the end of summer. It’s been so cold and wet most of the summer, but I feel like the jet stream could move and it could get hot. Hopefully though, it will happen before Labor Day Weekend when many of the public beaches close.