Good evening! Today is Lame Duck Day or so some silly calendar told me.🐦  Six weeks to First Day of Calendar Spring or so we’ve been deceived to believe. Calendar spring is rarely true spring in the Albany area, and certainly we have to wait until closer to May 1st for things to green up, even with Climate Change making spring come earlier. Even if the leaves aren’t green, trout fishing in April is fun. Not to mention camping. ⛺ I could use a roaring fire about now. 🔥

But for now, partly cloudy ☁and 30 degrees in Albany. Maybe a few snow flurries around on and  off but not a big deal. There is a south breeze at 8 mph. The skies will clear around 5 pm. Then come tomorrow mid-morning the big snow storm comes. ❄ Eight to twelve inches if you believe the meteorologists. ⛄They are paid the big bucks to predict such things so I’m tempted to believe them.

🌷🌷Only six weeks remain until the first day of calendar spring! Spring by this time tomorrow will be much sought after🌷🌷

Tonight will have increasing clouds, with a low of 14 degrees at 4am.☁ Two degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around 15 at 5am; Northwest wind 5 to 7 mph becoming calm in the evening. In 2017, we had cloudy skies. It got down to 27 degrees. The record low of -18 occurred back in 1995.

Tonight will have a Last Quarter with 55% illuminated. 🌗The moon will rise tomorrow at 12:17 am. The Snow Moon is on Wednesday, February 28th. The sun will rise at 7:02 am with the first light at 6:33 am, which is one minute and 12 seconds earlier than yesterday. Tonight will have 13 hours and 45 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 32 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will snow❄ before 3pm, then sleet.🌨 High of 27 degrees at 3pm. Six degrees below normal. Southeast wind 3 to 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow and sleet accumulation of 3 to 7 inches possible. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies. The high last year was 35 degrees. The record high of 48 was set in 2005. 12.4 inches of snow fell back in 1983. I doubt we will break that record tomorrow. 

Regardless it’s definately going to be snowy  and icy Wednesday. Once I get shopping tonight though, 🛍 I’ll park my truck🅿 and I will take the bus to work🚍, so I won’t have to deal with snow, except maybe for delays and walking to and from the bus stop. Plus bring my truck up to full voltage before parking it in the snow spot, especially in light of the fact that I don’t expect to be digging it out before Sunday. I decided I need to get to the store to buy dish soap, honey and maybe a few other supplies.🍳 I did stop at Stewarts last night to get milk,🐄 but other then that it was a pretty quiet night, not getting home until after 8 PM. Nine by the time I was done with dinner. 

Not a particularly nice weekend on tap. Saturday, a chance of snow showers. ❄Partly sunny, with a high near 32. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Sunday, a chance of rain and snow showers before 10am, then a chance of rain showers.🌧 Cloudy, with a high near 39. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Typical average high for the weekend is 33 degrees.

I am undecided if I will head up to the Adirondack Outdoorsman Show.🎣🐐🐻 It’s a pretty long drive to Johnstown for a relatively small outdoors show, and it would be more inclined if I could go camping after it, which seems unlikely with this weekend’s forecast.❄ Maybe it’s mid but there is going to be a ton of snow up north and cloudy weather isn’t conductive for nice camping, especially during the winter.⛺

In four weeks on March 6 the sun will be setting at 5:51 pm,🌇 which is 35 minutes and 30 seconds later then today. The late sunsets at that point will be really nice. Especially if we get a good spring thaw. In 2017 on that day, we had mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 43 and 13 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 40 and 22 degrees. The record high of 63 degrees was set back in 1974.

I didn’t bring my laptop home last night, so I couldn’t fix the glitches in the firmware💻 of my updated LED light strips. I think I can figure out the glitches and get them fixed after work today. :idea:While the flash in the lights on the hour is nice to keep track at night the time, it’s not so great when you trying to sleep. Still have an issue with the lights not running their full cycle when activated by the timer chip. I think I have an idea on how to fix it.

I think I am going to make Macaroni and Cheese tonight for dinner. Just the packaged stuff but I will add some extra cheese, salsa, corn and broccoli. 🍛 Something fairly easy. I promise myself that I will make burritos with all those cans of refried beans I have a home but not tonight. Then I will go shopping. 

Later on I want to play with the Max7219 module📺 to figure out why it is not working. 💣I have my guesses but no real answers. I won’t know until I really start testing them. Things were fine until swapped the cables and now nothing is working.💩 Something stupid probably.  I want to get things working and replace that broken plexiglass by the weekend. Then I will have my variable message sign and clock project done, and then I can dedicate my hobby time to other purposes. 

Looking ahead, there are 6 weeks until First Day of Spring🐝🌸 when the sun will be setting at 7:08 pm with dusk at 7:36 pm (Daylight Savings Time). On that day in 2017, we had partly cloudy skies and temperatures between 49 and 19 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 46 degrees. We hit a record high of 78 back in 2012.