Good morning! Happy Saturday. Five weeks of winter left! Spring is coming, although realistically, it’s a pretty long time. Remember, it’s 10 weeks from first day of summer to Labor Day. Two weeks to Snow Moon 🌕 . Mostly sunny and 11 degrees in Delmar, NY. It certainly could be colder, but not hardly warm. There is a north-northwest breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. There are 6 inches of snow on the ground. ☃ Going to be a cold next few days – it won’t be until Friday at 11 am when things thaw out, although I’m sure on the sunnier days we will see some melting of the snow . 🌡️

Not sure what my plans are today. Today is turning out nicer then I originally had expected. I am debating about skiing or maybe going out to Five Rivers. My only concern is the snow might be a bit deep for hiking there. Lately I’ve been enjoying the walks out to Five Rivers and then the Van Dyke Preserve. I have to admit I like walking Meads Road with the scenery, and watching the cows chew their cud. If the sun stays out, I don’t think it will be unreasonably cold.

Today will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a high of 21 degrees at 3pm. 13 degrees below normal. North wind around 6 mph. A year ago, we had light drizzle in the morning, which became mostly sunny by afternoon. The high last year was 40 degrees. The record high of 58 was set in 1900. 9 inches of snow fell back in 1893.❄

Don’t think it’s going to snow until late today but I don’t like driving on icy roads, I’m cautious about leaving home today, especially in the afternoon. Plus I washed my truck – sort of – on Thursday. I still do need to get sheets for my bed, probably at Walmart but I could go somewhere else. Maybe I should go for a hike in the Pine Bush and then get sheets at one of the big boxes up that way? Still seeing a ton of mattress ads ever since I Googled mattress sizes. Mine is old and isn’t great, but I’m not ready to haul mine to the landfill and buy a new one. I bet burning them is fun, and you can recover the scrap metal, but kind of stinky. There still is the mattress carcass up in National Forest that someone left after burning it. Maybe when I buy my off-grid property I’ll get a new mattress for moving there.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:11 pm with sun having an altitude of 34.2° from the due south horizon (-36.7° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 8.8 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 4:46 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (246°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (253°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 5:25 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 2 seconds with dusk around 5:53 pm, which is one minute and 18 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Crescent 🌒 Moon in the west-southwest (242°) at an altitude of 17° from the horizon, 246,594 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:27 pm. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 20 degrees. There will be a north breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 10 hours and 30 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 39 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will snow likely, possibly mixed with freezing drizzle, mainly between 4am and 5am. Cloudy 🌨, with a low of 16 degrees at 1am. One degree below normal, which is similar to a typical night around February 10th. Maximum wind chill around 13 at 6pm; Light north wind. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Little or no ice accumulation expected. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. In 2020, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 7 degrees. The record low of -13 occurred back in 2016.

🌹🌻🌼Only 5 weeks remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼 So there is hope, or so we tell our selves. Next Saturday, if you decrement the integer by one, you will see there is only four weeks until spring.

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until Snow Moon 🌕 when the sun will be setting at 5:42 pm with dusk at 6:10 pm. On that day in 2020, we had snow and temperatures between 42 and 26 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 38 degrees. We hit a record high of 61 back in 1997.