“Gray, but warm, damp, and corrosive this morning. At least I don’t live in Dorona, Penna back when the zinc factory would kill all the trees in the town. That said, certainly that towel catching fire while taking breakfast out of the oven woke me up. Maybe I need to invest in asbestos potholders rather than using an increasingly ripped up and now partially burnt dish towel to get things out of the oven? It was a brisk walk down to the Park and Ride because I was running late but I was still there pretty early.” 

A pretty mild morning but damp and cloudy. Mostly cloudy and 43 degrees in Delmar, NY. Later look for a high of 47 degrees at 11am. 14 degrees above normal. Breezy, with a west wind 14 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph. Tomorrow we get to look forward to snow, though not too much.  Definitely a quick spring down to the Park and Ride, but I made it there in time, and got to ride the express.

The sun will set at 5:19 pm with dusk around 5:48 pm, which is 1 minutes and 19 seconds later than yesterday. Today will have 10 hours and 19 minutes of daylight, an increase of 2 minutes and 34 seconds over yesterday. I’m glad it won’t be dark when I go home tonight, assuming I get out at 5 PM and catch the express.

Tonight will snow, mainly after 4am. Mostly cloudy, with a low of 25 degrees at 5am. Eight degrees above normal. Northwest wind 8 to 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible. In 2016, it got down to 23 degrees with periods of snow. The record low of -20 occurred back in 1934.

I got to say I’m going to be a lot more careful removing pans from the oven with a dish towel. I guess it wasn’t as bad as the time I preheated the oven with a plastic spatula in it, which caught fire and the oven stunk for about five years later every time I turned on the stupid broiler. I’ve burned my share of junk outdoors, but I tell you even the smallest amount of plastic or anything indoors, stinks awful. Got to learn to be more careful. I do keep a fire extinguisher in my kitchen and one in my truck, but fortunately I’ve never had to use them.

Last night I watched the American Experience special on the Oklahoma City Bombing. I had kind of forgotten how awful the 1990s were under the Clinton administration. I had vague feelings why I liked Bernie Sanders and ultimately Jill Stein over Clinton but watching the film brought back my memories of the paranoia and hatred that were the norm in the Clinton years. While the later Obama years weren’t great with his Sandy Hook attacks, after least he acted like a respectful adult who could keep his pants buckled.

The weather is just awful this morning. Just so damp and wet. But mild. I think I will prefer the snow we are getting tomorrow. Of course, who knows, it might turn out to be all slop, as has been the case lately. Or maybe just more gray skies and cold weather.

As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until March 1st when the sun will be setting at 5:46 pm with dusk at 6:14 pm. On that day in 2016, we had rain and temperatures between 38 and 21 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 39 degrees. We hit a record high of 61 back in 1991.