The area has accidentally become one of Europe’s largest nature preserves, serving as a clear testament to the detrimental impact of humans on wildlife.
There are ongoing arguments about whether the Exclusion Zone will ever be inhabitable for humans again. Ukraine’s state authorities said in 2011 that the area could be occupied within 320 years, while Greenpeace and Chernobyl director Ihor Gramotkin both said more recently that it would likely be upwards of 20,000 years.
I don't think any reasonable person doesn't believe all the nuclear radiation ever created won't some day be in the environment. Some hopeful notes after the fallout, and after humanity's short time on earth has come and passed.
The Dow shed more than 200 points, or 0.8%, while the S&P 500 dropped about 1% around market open. Stocks poised to benefit from an economic reopening – including airlines, cruise lines and lodging firms – fell Monday morning, unwinding some of the gains made over the past month amid rising vaccine optimism. The CBOE Volatility Index (^VIX) briefly spiked above 30 for the first time in five weeks.
Populous parts of the UK including London went back into a more draconian state of lockdown over the weekend, after the discovery of a new variant of COVID-19 said by experts to be 70% more transmittable than the earlier version of the virus in the country. The UK’s FTSE 100 index (^FTSE) sank more than 2%, and the pound fell 1.9% again the dollar (GBPUSD=X) Monday morning in New York.
The purpose of this text is to promote understanding of the Geographic Information Science and Technology enterprise (GIS&T, also known as "geospatial").
This free Penn State textbook looks like a very interesting read 📖 for people interested in mapping.
Aerial images need to be transformed from perspective views into plan views before they can be used to trace the features that appear on topographic maps, or to digitize vector features in digital data sets. One way to accomplish the transformation is through stereoscopic viewing.
Finally got out for my morning walk. Hopefully they'll fix the skid steer with the blower on it, and I'll be able to do my regular walk come the evening.
Good morning! Happy First Day of Winter ☃️! Ithink it started around 5:15 this morning, well before I was awake. 87 days until spring, days get longer tomorrow. 🌷 Next Monday is 4:30 PM Sunset 🌆. Mostly cloudy and 29 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ Calm wind. There are 21 inches of snow on the ground. ☃ Definitely melting with the higher temperatures yesterday and the sun ☀ on Saturday. Not so much sun today but maybe some later. ️Things will start to thaw out at around 10 am. 🌡️
I don’t know if the sidewalks fully plowed at this point ❄ but I think enough are done to get out for my morning walk 🚶🏻. At any rate I no longer have an excuse to skip my walk at least in the daytime hours, they’re done past the high school. 🚸 I’m hoping by evening that Elm Avenue will finally have its sidewalks plowed – the snow storm was last week.
Not a lot of big things on the agenda today for work, 💼 but I think things will pop up as the day progresses. Tomorrow I plan to work down at the library as it will be sunny ☀ and relatively warm. I should also get propane on Tuesday and supplies for camping 🏕 should I head north on Christmas Day. 🎅🏻 Hoping that the snow and warm temperatures will reduce the size of snow banks up north dramatically.
Today will have patchy fog before 10am. Otherwise, mostly cloudy ⛅ , with a high of 35 degrees at 1pm. One degree above normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 19th. Light south wind. Maybe some more sun later. A year ago, we had light rain in the morning, which became mostly clear by afternoon. The high last year was 24 degrees. The record high of 62 was set in 2018. 6.6 inches of snow fell back in 2008.❄
Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:55 am with sun having an altitude of 23.9° from the due south horizon (-46.9° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 13.5 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:40 pm with the sun in the southwest (230°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (238°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:26 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 26 seconds with dusk around 4:57 pm, which is 30 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the First Quarter 🌓 Moon in the south-southeast (160°) at an altitude of 40° from the horizon, 248,971 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:34 pm. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 34 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Tomorrow will have 9 hours and 3 minutes of daytime, an increase of 3 seconds over today.
Tonight will have a slight chance of snow after 1am. Mostly cloudy 🌨, with a low of 27 degrees at 4am. Eight degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 2nd. Calm wind. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 10 degrees. The record low of -8 occurred back in 1955.
Cool this weekend with temperatures running 6 degrees below normal but otherwise sunny. 😃 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 26. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 29. Typical average high for the weekend is 33 degrees.
I am hoping to get north this weekend. 🌨 Winter camping is fun, and while it might be cold I will dress warmly 🧣🧤 and have the propane heater for keeping the tent toasty. ♨ Nights are long but they can be fun this time of year.
As previously noted, next Monday is 4:30 PM Sunset 🌆 with dusk at 5:01 pm. On that day in 2019, we had partly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 44 and 27 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 32 degrees. We hit a record high of 61 back in 1982.
