The worse part is the acrid smell of the smoke during the middle of the night 👃

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Really in bed is when I’ve been noticing the foul air quality the most, though the smoke is everywhere including in my office. Seems as the temperature drops in the evening the smoke gets downright acrid, like something nasty made out of PVC you tossed on the bonfire. Politicians say stay indoors ignoring the fact that whatever is outdoors is likely to get indoors and a lot of people don’t have air conditioning.

Good morning on this smokey Thursday. 🌇 . Smoke and 49 degrees at the Elm Ave Town Park for the morning walk. 🌫️ There is a west breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The current air quality index is 208, very unhealthy.

There are some people out jogging this morning 🏃 and I think they are nuts 🤪. I’m doing my morning walk 🚶 at a slow and steady pace but my nose and throat are irritated some from the air pollution but also the lack of quality sleep 🛏 after the long and crazy days at work. Managed to get in 7.3 miles walked yesterday but it’s tough between the smoke and the work schedule. Hoping both session and the pollution break soon but I see both dragging into the weekend.

Today will have a chance of showers before 2pm, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms between 2pm and 5pm, then a chance of showers after 5pm. Some of the storms could produce small hail. Widespread haze before 11am. Patchy smoke before 11am. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 65 degrees at 5pm. 12 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 28th. Maximum dew point of 53 at 3pm. West wind around 6 mph becoming north in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with more sun in the afternoon. The high last year was 77 degrees. The record high of 93 was set in 2011.

The air pollution locally hss been pretty bad but nothing like what they’ve had in the Finger Lakes, or even Syracuse or New York City. 🌁 We haven’t had the bright orange skies of New York City but the haze has cast a blueish pale gray on everything. Makes everything dull like a rainy day or a little like behind a car burning oil. 🚘 That said I certainly felt it racing out to the bus 🚍 which was running late or even after walking. Just a lot of congestion at times, a bit of a sore throat from all that particulate matter. Probably like a night of hard drinking 🍻 after a few smokes. 🚬 That said, life goes on and sometimes it’s best to keep a good habit going regardless of the poor air quality.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:55 pm with sun having an altitude of 70.2° from the due south horizon (-0.6° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 2.2 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:49 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (296°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (303°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:32 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 25 seconds with dusk around 9:05 pm, which is 37 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:51 pm. At sunset, look out for potential rain 🌧 and thunderstorms 🌩 and temperatures around 60 degrees. The dew point will be 51 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Today will have 15 hours and 16 minutes of daytime, an increase of 52 seconds over yesterday.

Last night I worked until 11 pm, though I finished up the evening from home 💻 as between the laptop and Hotspot and phone there isn’t much you can’t do remotely. I’m kind of hoping I can finish tonight off remotely too, though I concede the air quality might be better in my office 🏢. Though who knows, even with the air conditioning at work, you could smell the smoke being sucked in all day by the HVAC system. I’m starting to run low on fresh and frozen fruit 🍏 at home along with eggs 🥚 and kale but I doubt I’ll be able to get to the store before Friday. It’s possible I’ll need to run to the laundromat Friday night if I’m working Saturday. 🧑🏻‍💼

Tonight will have a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms before 11pm, then a slight chance of showers after 5am. Some of the storms could produce small hail. Mostly cloudy 🌥, with a low of 47 degrees at 6am. Nine degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around May 13th. Light northwest wind. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became light rain by the early hours of the morning. It became somewhat humid as the night progressed. It got down to 58 degrees. The record low of 37 occurred back in 1977.

On this day in 1968, Robert F. Kennedy’s funeral takes place at the St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

Right now, a split verdict on the weekend. 😕 Saturday, a chance of showers, with thunderstorms also possible after 2pm. Some of the storms could produce small hail. Partly sunny, with a high near 72. Northwest wind 6 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. Maximum dew point of 54 at 9am. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 80. Maximum dew point of 58 at 8pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 78 degrees.

Looking ahead, there are 6 weeks until Ugly Truck Day 🚚 when the sun will be setting at 8:29 pm with dusk at 9:01 pm. On that day in 2022, we had hot, humid, mostly sunny, thunderstorm and temperatures between 97 and 72 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 84 degrees. We hit a record high of 97 back in 1991.

Savana

AgPhd Compost vs Manure #1074

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Darren and Brian Hefty discuss the benefits and challenges of using both compost and manure fertilizer.

Cattle and hog manure an be spread fresh or it can be composted. In short, composted manure smells a lot less, and weights less due less water so you can spread more nutrient with less trips, but it takes a lot longer for the nutrients to be absorbed into the soil. Fresh manure delivers nutrients with a punch, especially liquid manures that get down in the soil or are injected with a drag line. Interesting, short video.

Opinion | As Canadian Smoke Darkens the New York Sky, The Future is Clear – The New York Times

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Opinion | As Canadian Smoke Darkens the New York Sky, The Future is Clear – The New York Times

My father, who died of lung cancer, used to say that as soon as people inhaled their first cigarette, they immediately knew, if they weren’t in denial, that they were harming themselves.

I felt the same way on Tuesday in New York, my eyes itching and my nose burning and the taste in my throat like I’d swallowed a charcoal bonbon. This had to be bad. The sky wasn’t quite the apocalyptic orange of Australia’s Black Summer or San Francisco’s Day the Sun Didn’t Rise, but it had grown confrontationally eerie, enveloping the city in a blanket of toxic smog.

Until now, if people in the green and leafy Northeast looked at arid Western cities covered in smoke from wildfires, they could say, that can’t happen here, thank God. On Tuesday, it did: For a moment, New York’s air quality was worse than it was in Delhi, the infamous pollution capital where average life spans are reduced more than nine years by particulates in the air. By evening, New York had registered the worst air quality in the world among major cities. And staying indoors may not provide perfect protection.

While winds are fickle, and it can be hard to predict where smoke will travel in the days and weeks ahead, there isn’t any reason to think the Canadian fires coughing this smoke up into the atmosphere will be stopping anytime soon.

I’m hoping this is not a trend 🌫️

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While it’s probably a short term meteorological phenomena with the blocking low off the Maine coast funneling all the Canadian wildfire smoke, it’s probably no coincidence that we are getting dumped on with a ton of wildfire pollution the year of Canada’s worse wildfires.

We used to think of wildfires and smoke they produce as mostly a western problem. It sucks to be them, we told ourselves. We all enjoy watching a freak show until it hits us personally. The truth is that is mostly a short term nuisance for most of us, except for those who have cardiac arrest and are hauled off in the meat wagon to never return.

The real question is this a one on phenomena that occurs every few decades like last happened locally in 2002, though this event probably was more serious with many air pollution meters pegged at their maximum setting, in what is being called the worse Canadian wildfire season ever. But humans have short term memory, and reporting and sensing of pollution has never been better.

It’s hard to dispute climate change is making wildfires more common, and that’s not just an activist talking point. Last summer and the year before we seemingly had a record number of gray summer days from high in the atmosphere wildfire smoke – and some brilliant sunsets to boot. But maybe because we are noticing it more from increased reporting in the press.