Crude
West Towards Harvey Hill and Massachussets
Weather Update – March 25, 2022
Fog 🌫 this morning, maybe some sun ☀ the clouds and ultimately rain ☔ for the weekend
It seems like a broken record for the weekends lately but I guess it’s still March and not snowing 🌨. Did you see how cold Monday will be? That will certainly get the salt spreaders back out. But then back to the 50s and 60s later in the week at least during the day.
| Today. Feels like … April 9th. |
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Scattered showers, mainly after 4pm. Partly sunny.
West wind 5 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.
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56 degrees | 7:14 sunset |
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| Tonight. Feels like … April 11th. |
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A chance of showers, mainly before 8pm. Mostly cloudy.
West wind around 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.
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35 degrees | 6:46 sunrise |
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| Saturday. Feels like … March 26th. |
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A slight chance of snow showers before 7am, then a slight chance of rain and snow showers between 7am and 9am, then a chance of rain showers after 9am. Some thunder is also possible. Increasing clouds.
South wind 6 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Little or no snow accumulation expected.
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49 degrees | 7:15 sunset |
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| Saturday Night. Feels like … March 29th. |
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A chance of rain showers, mixing with snow after 11pm, then gradually ending. Mostly cloudy.
West wind around 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Little or no snow accumulation expected.
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30 degrees | 6:44 sunrise |
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| Sunday. Feels like … March 2nd. |
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A slight chance of rain and snow showers before 11am, then a chance of rain showers between 11am and 5pm, then a chance of rain and snow showers after 5pm. Mostly cloudy.
West wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.
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40 degrees | 7:16 sunset |
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| Sunday Night. Feels like … February 18th. |
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A chance of rain and snow showers before 8pm, then a slight chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy.
Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.
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18 degrees | 7 max wind chill | 6:42 sunrise |
| Monday. Cold ! |
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Mostly cloudy.
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29 degrees | 6 max wind chill | 7:18 sunset |
| Monday Night. Feels like … February 14th. |
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Partly cloudy.
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17 degrees | 6 max wind chill | 6:40 sunrise |
| Tuesday. Feels like … February 24th. |
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Sunny.
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38 degrees | 6 max wind chill | 7:19 sunset |
| Tuesday Night. Feels like … February 28th. |
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Mostly clear.
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21 degrees | 6:39 sunrise |
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| Wednesday. Feels like … March 17th. |
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A chance of showers. Partly sunny.
Chance of precipitation is 40%.
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45 degrees | 7:20 sunset |
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| Wednesday Night. Feels like … April 6th. |
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A chance of rain and snow showers. Mostly cloudy.
Chance of precipitation is 30%.
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33 degrees | 6:37 sunrise |
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| Thursday. Feels like … April 17th. |
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A chance of showers. Mostly cloudy.
Chance of precipitation is 30%.
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60 degrees | 7:21 sunset |
Daily Update – March 25, 2022
Good morning! Yeah, it’s Friday!
Partly cloudy and 40 degrees at the Elm Ave Park and Ride. 🌥 Sun is starting to peak out a bit. Fog 🌫 around, especially in the city. There is a west breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at Sunday around 7 pm. ☃️
I still haven’t turned the heat back on but I see the forecast for Monday with a high of 27, ♨ so I know what that means. I think it will be in the teens by morning. That said, later next week ☀ sun in temperatures in the fifties and sixties.
While yesterday was quite dreary ☔, I did manage to get in 13,000 steps between the before work walk 🚶 in the drizzle and an evening walk down at the park, doing lapses along the Nature Trail along the Phillipen Kill. 🦌 Saw several white tail and heard Nut Hatches I think 🐦 and certainly by the time I was heading back home I heard the spring peepers 🐸 quite happy with the somewhat mild conditions and the rain. No bats 🦇 around last night, too cold.
Got milk 🐮 before bed 🛏 and retired to my bed around eight 8⃣. Not sure if when the evenings get longer if I will stay up later, probably though especially when it’s hot inside and starry ✨ and relatively nice out back. There is no reason why I need to get up at five in the morning in the summer although it might be cooler out then for a morning walk before work.
One of the people we were interviewing yesterday listed R Studio 📊 as one of his skills on his resume. Apparently it’s a big thing in colleges these days, which is kind of neat 🎓 as I find it’s a very useful tool for analyzing data and making maps and graphs. 🗺 Well you know, I use it nearly every day to create blog content. For Census data and thematic maps and graphs its a wonderful tool. PANDAS and Python also gets a lot of use in college these days. I kind of wish I was younger and could have learned about such things in school.
I’m glad tomorrow is the weekend 😁 because it’s been a long weekend. Four day session days and while only one day I stayed late the endless Zoom meetings 📹 and interviews were tiresome. You want to do other things during Zoom but then they yell Ferris Buehler. 🎡 I should get a dress shirt or two tomorrow but I kind of don’t want to spend money on gas ⛽ and it might rain for walking in the Pine Bush. 🦋
Bottom
Town of Bethlehem Divided Into Four Equal Population Districts
Like most towns in New York State, Bethlehem doesn't have Wards. All elected officials are elected at-large.
But could you draw equal population districts that represent actual communities of interest? Not looking a demographics or political competitiveness, but actual communities of interest based on my knowledge of the town -- like Slingerlands, Delmar, Elsmere, Glenmont or South Bethlehem, and have them come out to be equal population? I tried, and here was the results.
There are different ways to look at this problem. One could use an algorithm to draw districts, although I've yet to find one that does a particularly good job. Turns out it's hard to automate district drawing, as often different demographics live next to one and another, and you get stuck with pockets of similar demographics living on opposite ends of the town. You end up packing and cracking or splitting similar demographics, unintentionally. It always seems like equal population is enemy of building communities of interest.
Drawing districts is a fascinating GIS question. But often the best districts are still drawn by humans, watching the totals add up in redistricting plugin, and then looking at maps of demographics. And that involves a lot of acceptance of the fact that districts you have drawn still have a lot of problems with packing and cracking. I don't like how this ultimately came out, but the equal population constraint really causes a lot of problems. Having more districts, might help solve the problem.
The qgis plugin I used for this was the Statto Software Redistricter, using a PL 94-171 Census Data joined against the block-level files. I didn't load any political or demographic graphics, just raw population along with my knowledge of what the neighborhoods look like from a map and having explored them in person, with a goal of grouping highly dense and very rural neighborhoods separately. A goal that was largely a failure in this effort! But it is a fun thought experiment.
Towards Rensselaer County
