Good morning! Happy Sunday, Welcome to the Coldest Week of the Year (On Average). Partly sunny and 11 degrees in Delmar. There is a north breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. Nice and warm inside here, although maybe a bit too warm as I saw my December heating bill was almost three digits long. 🔥💰 Things will start to thaw out at Wednesday around 11 am. 🌡️ Six months from now my gas and electric bill will be much lower as I’ll have the heat off and will be inside much less burning electricity. But then I’ll be spending more on gasoline for my truck. ⛽ Sorta balances out.
Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 24 degrees at 2pm. Six degrees below normal. North wind 5 to 7 mph. A year ago, we had light snow in the morning, which became cloudy by afternoon. The high last year was 39 degrees. The record high of 71 was set in 1932. 13.1 inches of snow fell back in 1964.❄
Today the plan is sometime after noon to visit Walmart for supplies including a big bulk package of toilet paper 🚽as I’m out and some drain solvent as the drain is slow with the cold. I also need some supplies for the long week and will probably gas up Big Red to keep his tank full in the cold.
After that I’m thinking of heading down to Hannacroix Preserve 🏃for a short hike down to the river and the frozen waterfalls 🍛then out to my parents house for Sunday dinner. Should be a nice day, but continued cold.
The sun will set at 4:45 pm with dusk around 5:16 pm, which is one minute and 9 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for mostly sunny skies 🌃 and temperatures around 23 degrees. There will be a north breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 22 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 33 seconds over yesterday.
Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 8 degrees at 6am. Six degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around 1 at 6am; North wind 3 to 7 mph. In 2018, we had cloudy in the evening, which became mostly sunny by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 3 degrees. The record low of -24 occurred back in 1957.
Yesterday I hiked about five miles around town, hiking mostly along the rail trail until dusk. 🏃It was about a two hour walk. Pretty nice evening, a lot of dog walkers and yuppies on the trail but pleasant. Mostly did the part of the trail in Delmar and Elsmere closest to my apartment, listening to some podcasts. 🎧
I didn’t get the earliest start ever because I was taking apart the Save the Pine Bush scanner and getting it to work again. On off switch is acting up but at least it’s working. 🔎I got to try to figure out if I can remove the switch entirely and order a replacement part on ebay but it works for now. 📠I also got the SATA drive adapter for M.2 SSD I bought and tried it out but it was unreliable working through the USB adapter. 💾 I think it will be fine when attached directly to the SATA port inside but I need to download the Xubuntu install disk and put on a flash drive before I can mount the new drive in my laptop and reinstall Linux.
Two busy session days this week. 👔I have that new ironing board so I’ll have to iron my shirts. I’m not sure if they will be late nights but I don’t expect to be there after 11:30 so I’ll be able to take the bus. The upshot is the following weekend is a three day weekend but I’ll have to stay in town due to family obligations. Same thing with the following week due to the Save the Pine Bush hike I’m leading. 🌲 I don’t care that much, it makes the winter pass by quicker and helps me save money.
Looking ahead, there are 8 weeks until Daylight Savings Time 🌆 when the sun will be setting at 6:56 pm with dusk at 7:24 pm (Daylight Savings Time). The extra time in the evenings is nice especially when we have a good spring thaw. By then, sunrise is already quite early so the time change is worth it. On that day in 2018, we had mostly sunny, snow showers and temperatures between 38 and 29 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 42 degrees. We hit a record high of 72 back in 1977.
