Good morning! Happy Saturday. Finally the weekend! Next Saturday is First Day of Winter ☃️. Pine Bush Hike next too, supposed to be a ski trip from Madison Avenue Extension 🎿but I got my doubts that we will have much snow left by then. Rain, drizzle and fog 🌁 and 39 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ There is a north-northwest breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at tomorrow around 4 pm. ☃️

Not a real nice morning, it’s not only foggy outside but also in my head. 🌁 I woke up early again this morning and had trouble getting back to sleep until I wandered downstairs and took a pee. 🚽 Little achy in my knees too but maybe that because I’ve been spending do much time on the exercise bike. 🚲 Then I got looking at some numbers and stats in Excel and the DEC data. I do have some new data with the DEC latest dump to update a few maps but honestly my map collection 🗾is pretty complete on the blog.

Today will rain likely, mainly after 3pm. Cloudy 🌧, with a high of 46 degrees at 1pm. 10 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around November 21st. Northwest wind 5 to 8 mph becoming calm in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. Going to be a real dreary day but hopefully that will eat away at the snow. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 45 degrees. The record high of 63 was set in 1901. 12.5 inches of snow fell back in 1956.❄

Today I am going to my parents house for their Christmas decorating party 🎄. Not going out tomorrow as I have the Save the Pine Bush benefit to go to tomorrow night. It’s kind of in the middle of the city which is annoying because there isn’t much bus service on Sunday night to take me there, so I’m going to have to drive there avoiding the red light camera intersections somehow. 🚦 I really hate driving in the city, my truck gets awful gas mileage on city streets and I might have to fuel ⛽ up tomorrow as I haven’t bought gas since the last time I was camping the week before Thanksgiving.

The sun will set at 4:22 pm with dusk around 4:54 pm, which is 12 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 42 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Today will have 9 hours and 4 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 34 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will rain likely, mainly before midnight. Cloudy 🌧, with a low of 36 degrees at 5am. 15 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 30th. Breezy, with a south wind 6 to 11 mph becoming west 18 to 23 mph after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 34 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 32 degrees. The record low of -8 occurred back in 1874.

Probably won’t be walking tonight 🚶
but instead riding the exercise bike 🚲 and watching some YouTube videos. At least I won’t have to worry about slipping and falling on the bike compared to walking on icy sidewalks. Two nights ago there was a fair amount of black ice in parts.

Today in 1994, started construction begins on the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river. ⛲ The Three Gorges Dam has been the world’s largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW) since 2012. In 2014, the dam generated 98.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) and had the world record, but was surpassed by the Itaipú Dam, which set the new world record in 2016, producing 103.1 TWh.

Also, today was a notable date in civil rights history, with the release of the Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964), 💖a landmark United States Supreme Court case holding that the Commerce Clause gave the U.S. Congress power to force private businesses to abide by Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in public accommodations.🏰

One month 📅 from now will be Coldest Week of the Year 🌬 when the sun will be setting at 4:45 pm with dusk at 5:16 pm. The average high temperature is 30 degrees, with a record high of 61 in 1895. It’s already pretty cold ❄ in my book 📙 but it could be colder and will get colder. And I’m half seriously thinking about eventually living off-grid in the much colder Wisconsin, a bit in a world where the climate has warmed a fair amount more over the next ten to 15 years.