Good morning! Happy Read Across America Day 📚 ! A good cold, blustery late winter day for curling up with a good book next to a heater, preferably in a room with south-facing windows Mostly sunny and 16 degrees in Delmar, NY. While definitely sunny, also quite breezy with ️22 mph wind from the northwest 🌬 with gusts up to 38 mph 💨💨💨. The current wind chill is -2. There are 2 inches of snow on the ground. ☃ ️Things will start to thaw out at tomorrow around 9 am. 🌡️

It was cold when I went for my morning walk, but with the sun it was manageable when you dress with layers. Last night was far colder. While I was out walking last night, there was blowing snow and I heard some branches snapping. I had my full face mask, but it was still cold around the eyes when the wind was blowing directly in my face. I didn’t mind my walk this morning but I definitely wanted to keep moving. Didn’t see many joggers or dog walkers this morning.

Today will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 26 degrees at 4pm. 13 degrees below normal. Blustery, with a northwest wind 16 to 22 mph, with gusts as high as 38 mph. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with a few breaks of sun the afternoon. The high last year was 58 degrees. The record high of 65 was set in 1991. 11.9 inches of snow fell back in 2018.❄

Yeah, it’s going to be a very cold day today. But tomorrow will be a lot warmer. I will work from home and stay inside until the evening walk, by when the wind should be dying down and things moderating. Tomorrow, I will probably work down from the library because it will be warm and sunny, and I rather like working down at the library where I don’t have to constantly have one eye on the data meter. I may go to Hannaford on Wednesday, although I have to be careful about getting food as it might thaw out with the warmer conditions. Maybe go to the library first then the grocery later.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:08 pm with sun having an altitude of 40.3° from the due south horizon (-30.5° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 7.1 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 5:09 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (255°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (261°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 5:47 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 56 seconds with dusk around 6:14 pm, which is one minute and 14 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:48 pm. At sunset, look for mostly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 25 degrees. The wind chill around sunset will be 13. ☃️ There will be a west-northwest breeze at 14 mph. Today will have 11 hours and 18 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have increasing clouds ☁, with a low of 20 degrees at 8pm. One degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around February 28th. Maximum wind chill around 14 at 6pm; Northwest wind 5 to 8 mph becoming south after midnight. In 2020, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 33 degrees. The record low of -10 occurred back in 1950.

I started looking at other apartments but so far most of them are more expensive then where I am currently living and far less convenient with public transit, library, park access. I looked a bit at houses in Rensselaer County but I am not sure if I want that kind of investment at this point, and the non-recoverable costs of owning a house are far more then what I pay in rent — communing costs, greater utility bills, taxes , lawn mowers and plowing, repairs, , etc. While houses are an asset so are stocks and bonds, and based on my back of the envelope calculations I make more money in stock and bond markets then I would owning property at this point. And it’s not like you can tow a house or land out of state when you want to move.

I kind of don’t want to commit to another year here, but truth be told, I don’t want to kill the golden goose at this point. It sucks the landlord raised my rent by $300 a year, to cover yet another faulty cheap water heater he had installed, but at least I didn’t have to pay the full cost of the heater. I may have to adjust my budget to cover it, but I still think it’s the affordable option. I am making almost $9,000 more this year then I was a year ago at this time, so it’s not that big of a deal. New York is just expensive to live in it, even if the jobs are so much better paying then other parts of country.

Today in 1989, Twelve European Community nations agree to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end of the century. They were pretty successful to that point, as HFCs have mostly replaced older CFCs and HCFCs. But now they are moving away from HFC gases as coolants, as it turns out they are super potent climate change gases. I think it’s totally reasonable to consider the impacts of heat pumps leaking HFCs on the environment. Maybe I’m too critical of heat pumps, they are a valuable climate change tool, but I am concerned how they are marketed at times to unsuspecting green-minded consumers.

Cool but sunny this weekend. 😎 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 35. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 37. Typical average high for the weekend is 40 degrees. The following weekend might be much warmer, but as we go through March the weather is moderating.

I am still thinking about heading up to the Adirondacks this weekend to camp for a night or two and do some skiing. I am toying about skiing around Thirtheenth Lake along Old Farm Road, assuming I can find parking up that way. Maybe the other lot is plowed as I doubt Old Farm Road is. Lot of snow up north but it will be cold enough that I don’t expect of lot melting.

Things could change, and there is a ton of snow up north, but I’ll bring a snow shovel, then shovel out a parking spot then camp. I’ll probably buy some firewood too, just because it might be hard to find wood in the cold. Plus I’ll have my propane heater which will keep things toasty. Nights have gotten a fair bit shorter then New Years Eve, so the extra daylight will be nice.

🌹🌻🌼Only 18 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼 That said, after today’s frigid winter weather, expect much nicer conditions come tomorrow.

One month 📅 from now will be Good Friday ✝️ when the sun will be setting at 7:22 pm with dusk at 7:51 pm (Daylight Savings Time).