Good morning! Happy Tuesday. Definitely a dark morning with the time change and the clouds. Next Tuesday is St. Patrick’s Day 🍀. Better watch out for the drunk drivers then, much more dangerous then the time change. It’s quite cloudy and 50 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a south breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at Thursday around 3 am. ☃️

I woke up this morning a bit congested 👃 but after a few cups of coffee ☕I feel pretty good. I know all they ever tell you on the radio 📻 these days is if you feel the least bit sick to stay home. 😷 But if I did that I’d never make it to work as sinus congestion is pretty much the norm for me in the winter. I tell you can smell on the buses how much more aggressively they are cleaning them. I guess that forty million the governor wanted is getting put to good use.

One thing I can say, it’s nice waking up and having the windows open 🐦 and hearing the birds chirp in the morning and the fresh air. And the rumble of the passing cars and trucks. 🚛 I think this will be the last morning in a while for open windows, but I am sure we will have enough warm up in a few weeks. And certainly April weather will be upon us before you know it. That will really help with the sinuses.

Sat out back for a while last night, 🌃 which was nice but it was cloudy out, and it wasn’t that quiet because my neighbors had a big fire going. I probably should have gone over, introduced myself and joined in some fun. Too bad I don’t have any alcohol to think.

Today will have a chance of showers, mainly after noon. Cloudy 🌦, with a high of 62 degrees at 3pm. 20 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 23rd. Another real mild day! Spring is coming. Maximum dew point of 47 at 6pm. South wind 7 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 38 degrees. The record high of 72 was set in 1977. 5.7 inches of snow fell back in 1964.❄

Solar noon 🌞 is at 1:06 pm with sun having an altitude of 43.5° from the due south horizon (-27.3° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 6.3 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:19 pm with the sun in the west (259°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (266°) starting at 6:54 pm and lasts for 2 minutes and 54 seconds with dusk around 7:24 pm, which is one minute and 12 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:58 pm. At sunset, look for rain showers 🌧 and temperatures around 58 degrees. The dew point will be 47 degrees. There will be a south-southwest breeze at 10 mph. Today will have 11 hours and 41 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 55 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have a chance of showers, mainly before midnight. Cloudy during the early evening, then gradual clearing 🌧, with a low of 33 degrees at 6am. Nine degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around April 3rd. Southwest wind 9 to 15 mph becoming northwest after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2019, we had light rain in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 34 degrees. The record low of -10 occurred back in 1939.

People ask if I was smart to put $1,000 in that IRA last week to avoid taxes but I look at it as I still have 15 plus years to retirement and closer to 20 before I can touch the IRA. 💵 Any blip in the market is only on paper and I had to contribute a full $1k to open the account. Next week I’ll return to contributing to the IRA as I did previously with the Roth IRA. There will be ups and downs in the market but when contribute every two weeks it smooths out gyrations of the markets. 📊

Today in 1969, in Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King, Jr. He later unsuccessfully attempts to recant. While he may not have been a CIA agent he certainly had the tacit support of the government.

A picture perfect weekend on tap. 😎 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 45. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 44. Typical average high for the weekend is 43 degrees. Saturday I’m doing some door 🚪 knocking for Save the Pine Bush. Still not sure if I’m going to Schoharie this weekend. Probably not though.

🌹🌻🌼Only 9 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼 Next weekend is the last weekend before calendar spring.

As previously noted, next Tuesday is St. Patrick’s Day 🍀 when the sun will be setting at 7:04 pm with dusk at 7:32 pm. On that day in 2019, we had mostly cloudy, snow showers and temperatures between 36 and 26 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 45 degrees. We hit a record high of 75 back in 1990.