Good morning! With two weeks to Christmas Day we have a lot of snow and ice on the ground and more snow or maybe rain coming tonight into Tuesday. Mostly cloudy to the north and clearing to the south. It looks like we are four degrees below freezing at 28 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a southwest breeze at 7 mph. The skies will clear around 11 am.
While I did not walk down to the express bus, I did catch the earlier local bus. I have quite a bit of work to catch up on today. I still feel a bit sick but I think I will have enough energy to make it through the day and if I work hard, hopefully I can get home at a reasonable hour. This isn’t a terrible winter morning at any rate and the hazelnut coffee and egg nog I bought yesterday is a nice treat. Made up scrambled eggs for a little extra punch but I tell you those grocery store large eggs are tiny. I joked on Facebook, the grocery store eggs are tinier then President Trump’s hands. I miss the fresh eggs I get from my parents, but the chickens don’t lay that much in the winter. All and all it was a pretty good breakfast.
Today will be partly sunny, with a high of 33 degrees at 12pm. Four degrees below normal. Should melt some more of the snow and ice. Southwest wind 6 to 9 mph becoming northwest in the afternoon. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies. The high last year was 31 degrees. The record high of 61 was set in 1952. 4.3 inches of snow fell back in 1970.
The sun will set at 4:22 pm with dusk around 4:54 pm, which is 7 seconds later than yesterday. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy conditions and 32 degrees. There will be a northwest breeze at 6 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 6 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 42 seconds over yesterday. Daylight is growing shorter for at least a few more weeks until we get down to around nine hours and three minutes. But in the meantime, sunsets are already starting to get slightly later.
Tonight will snow likely, mainly after 4am. Cloudy, with a low of 24 degrees at 8pm. One degree above normal. Calm wind becoming southeast 5 to 8 mph after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible. In 2016, we had light snow in the evening, which became snow and freezing fog by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 28 degrees. The record low of -12 occurred back in 1988.
Continuing to study Walmart online ordering option for buying jeans as local store never has my size in the color and type that I like, and when they have them they only have one pair. I just need to buy $35 to get free two day shipping. What I need to do is figure out what other supplies I need. Honestly if I could plan things out better I probably could save money by shopping union at Shoprite for groceries and then buying other supplies online using the two day shipping. That said when you buy stuff online, it often comes in extra packaging which is a pain when you don’t have trash pickup where you live and have to haul it to the transfer station or use it start campfires in the wilderness. And you can’t buy ammunition anymore online in New York because of some bullshit law. See you knew I was going to get in my dig against New York State somewhere in this post. Hah!
Honestly, while yesterday with my cold still in it’s grips of my throat and nose, I was pretty down on the snow, now I’m much more accepting. I mean I think it will fun to do some skiing and snow camping. While it is a lot of work to dig out a parking spot and haul the gear back, snow camping can be remarkably fun, even if the nights are a long. Snow is remarkably insulating, even if it cold. With the heated tent and roaring fire, it can be a lot fun.
As previously noted, there are 2 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, 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.