February 17, 2025 | Page 3 | Andy Arthur.org

If you think of the average high subtracted by the average high for the year in Albany as a sine wave, the phase goes positive around April 17th. ☀

The earth acts as a giant inductor for solar radiation as it takes time for the earth to heat or cold, which means that the average high temperature in Albany is 22 days out of sync with the position of the sun, making the high temperature departure curve is roughly 21.6 degrees out of phase from the sun although that’s not quite accurate around autumn as the sine wave that measures temperature departure is flatter than the position of the sun, because of the inductance of the earth and because not all heat from the earth is radiated back to space.

Just a little snow squall pushing through, blowing off of Lake Ontario. It’s interesting, it’s been cold enough to totally freeze Lake Erie but Ontario is much deeper and doesn’t as commonly freeze. Been a cool and blustery winter, one more arctic blast is expected this week.

Not as windy I as expected this morning, though there was a good gusts on the overnight and in early morning. I’m not saying it’s a wonderfully warm morning, but the wind is not constantly roaring like they warned us yesterday. The rain and wind pretty much cleaned off the trees before the deep freeze set in so not a lot of ice on the limbs to snap them off at this point. I think we are beyond the biggest risk of power failure, I actually turned hte heat back down before bed last night.

Going to be cold this week. I am not going to ride in on Tuesday but I probably will bundle up and toughen up and do it at least Wednesday. After yesterday’s rain, a lot of snow is gone. Not sure how slick the trail will be, it was bad on Saturday but that was before the snow and rain. Actually, by January standards it’s not that cold with lows in the single digits or teens on the coldest nights, and evidence is that this is getting close to cold weather as spring warmth starts to push into the extreme south, and that’s what is powering the strong wind gusts we’ve been having as the jet stream has been really flying high above, and it’s when the jet stream hits a bit of warm air aloaf and winds are pushed down to the ground.

Still working on the blog redesign and doing some reading. I fixed some of the bugs and hoping to get down to the library and re-launch it with a cleaner design, that also potentially boosts ad revenue without those pop-ups or annoying things that Google recommends. The idea is to put ads in places that don’t break the flow of the page but get a lot of eyeballs. I hate commercialism and selling attention, but I do like getting paid a bit for the blog and it’s cost of operation. But I think the right sidebar with additional maps showcased and ads will work well, while keeping the main content of the page free of advertising. The plan is to go the library for a few hours to launch the revised version

Showering and heading to Walmart in a bit. I am not sure how busy it will be on Presidents Day, I figure a lot of non-state workers have to work. I think the buses run on the regular schedule, as most non-state offices are open doing their thing. I just need to shower and figure out exactly what I need as I don’t plan to go shopping until next week after today. It sure was convient when I was riding my bike in be able to stop at the supermarket. Once it warms up and snow is gone, I’m sure I’ll be doing that 3 or 4 days a week.