December 1, 2020 Morning

Good morning! Happy December πŸŽ„! Can you believe it’s already December? I certainly can’t. Two weeks to Bill of Rights Day πŸ“œ. Pouring rain and 54 degrees in Delmar, NY. β˜” There is a south breeze at 11 mph. πŸƒ. The dew point is 49 degrees. Temperatures will drop below freezing at tomorrow around 4 am. β˜ƒοΈ

I was up early enough πŸŒ„ to get out for my walk but it was pouring rain at eight o’clock. So I canned my walk. Hopefully I’ll get out for my evening walk. 🚢🏻 I might also walk down to the library if it’s warm enough to walk down there. Work schedule is quiet πŸ•’ but I’m sure there will be projects later.

Today will have a chance of showers, mainly after noon. 🌧️ Mostly cloudy, with a temperature falling to around 44 by 5pm. South wind 11 to 16 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with more sun in the afternoon. The high last year was 28 degrees. The record high of 67 was set in 1934. 3.7 inches of snow fell back in 1969.❄

Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:46 am with sun having an altitude of 25.5Β° from the due south horizon (-45.3Β° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 12.6 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The sun is weak and low now, assuming that the rain and clouds part. The golden hour πŸ… starts at 3:40 pm with the sun in the southwest (233Β°). πŸ“Έ The sunset is in the west-southwest (241Β°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:24 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 21 seconds with dusk around 4:54 pm, which is 19 seconds earlier than yesterday. πŸŒ‡ The best time to look at the stars is after 5:31 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 46 degrees. Breezy, 16 mph breeze β›… from the south. Today will have 9 hours and 16 minutes of daytime, a decrease of one minute and 23 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have a slight chance of showers before 9pm. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 32 degrees at 5am. Five degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around November 16th. South wind around 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2019, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became light drizzle by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 27 degrees. The record low of -2 occurred back in 1875.

I am in some ways glad that 2020 is winding down. ⏳ For me it was a pretty good year, certainly odd but I had a lot of fun with remote work. πŸ’» Snow is holding off so maybe I can get in a few more camping trips in before the end of the year. β›Ί I don’t mind the snow but when the snow banks are high it’s hard to find anywhere to park. πŸ…Ώ Plus all the neat places on the dirt roads are closed come winter. ❄ But April will be back in 2021 and things are likely to be less odd then. I’m hopeful that the vaccine will be successful and I can eventually start working downtown again. 🚍

Still not a great weekend on tap. πŸ˜• Saturday, partly sunny, with a high near 42. Sunday, a chance of rain and snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 43. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Typical average high for the weekend is 40 degrees.

This will be a stay at home 🏑 weekend, like many others when I’ll probably walk 🚢🏻 out to Five Rivers 🐦 for watching the birds and wildlife. Not much snow lately but it might be muddy there. The alternative would be to drive to Rennselear and Schodack Island and then stock up on groceries at Aldi’s. Haven’t made a trip there in a while. Staying home saves money which is good as I’ve had a lot of bills lately. Money πŸ’΅ is tight and I have a quarterly tax payment due December 15th.

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until Bill of Rights Day πŸ“œ when the sun will be setting at 4:22 pm with dusk at 4:54 pm. On that day in 2019, we had partly cloudy, snow showers and temperatures between 44 and 28 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 36 degrees. We hit a record high of 61 back in 2015.

Square Timber Vista

Next Time – Tuesday December 1

Today’s sunrise was at 7:06 am. The next time the sun will rise earlier then today πŸŒ„ is in 65 days on Thursday, February 4, 2021.

The average high for today is 41 degrees. 🌑 The next time it will be on average warmer then today is in 99 days on Wednesday, March 10, 2021 when the average temperature will be 42 degrees.

The highest point for the sun today will be 25.5° from the horizon at 11:46 am. 🌞 The next time the sun will be higher in the sky mid-day is in 41 days on Monday, January 11.

Today has 9 hours and 41 minutes of daylight. ⏳ The next time the day will be longer then today is in 40 days on Sunday, January 10.

Today’s sunset will be at 4:23 pm. The next time the sun will set later then today πŸŒ† is in 18 days on Saturday, December 19.

The average low for today is 27 degrees. 🌑 The next night it will be on average warmer then tonight is in 111 days on Monday, March 22, 2021 when the average temperature will be 28 degrees.

Old Sugar Bay Bridge

What Makes A One-Term President? | FiveThirtyEight

What Makes A One-Term President? | FiveThirtyEight

There’s also the question of how a president leads in a moment of crisis, which has been the downfall of many a one-term president. For example, to cite Hoover again, popular memory is especially unforgiving of his handling of the Great Depression. At the time, his name was attached to camps built by unemployed Americans as shelter when they lost their homes, and a “Hoover flag” referred to an empty pocket turned inside out. Of course, Hoover is an extreme example, but other one-term presidents have experienced a similar fate, earning reputations for being hapless and bumbling in the face of serious challenges. This has certainly been the case with Trump, who is thought to have mismanaged the pandemic and, by downplaying the severity of the disease, worsened the partisan divides on how to best combat it.

What’s hard, though, in analyzing one-term presidents is knowing just how much any of this is actually within their control. We know that presidents are not infinitely powerful, especially when it comes to engineering major legislation to address complicated economic problems. Take Carter. Economists at the time thought government spending needed to be curtailed to stop inflation, which meant making major cuts to government programs, but this was politically impossible for Carter, as Congress would have resisted and he would have lost support among New Deal Democrats, which were still an important part of the party’s coalition.