January 11, 2023 Night

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Good evening! Partly clear and 29 degrees in Delmar. 🌃 There is a southeast breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. Things will start to thaw out at tomorrow around 10 am.

Out for the evening walk 🚶 after going to the laundromat. 👚 It took a lot longer than I thought, I almost feel like I put in two much soap. I brought my laptop 💻 but I was too fried after the day at work to do anything but scroll 📜 through the YouTube and social media. And then I posted my thoughts about the gas stove ban silliness. But now is the time to take action climate change or it’s never going to happen. 🌎

It’s just been really busy at work lately. 💼 Just a ton of rush projects and maybe I’ve been super aggressive at grabbing whatever is at the top of the que and making sure work gets done and done well. I thought December was busy but this month has proven even busier.

Tonight will be cloudy ☁, with a low of 28 degrees at 8pm. 12 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 21st. Maximum wind chill around 23 at 8pm; Southeast wind 6 to 8 mph. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 6 degrees. The record low of -26 occurred back in 1968.

Tonight will have a Waining Gibbous 🌖 Moon with 77% illuminated. The moon will rise at 9:23 pm. The Wolf 🐺 Moon is on Friday, January 27. The darkest hour is at 12:04 am, followed by dawn at 6:54 am, and sun starting to rise at 7:25 am in the east-southeast (120°) and last for 3 minutes and 21 seconds. Sunrise is 18 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌄 The golden hour ends at 8:10 am with sun in the southeast (127°). Tonight will have 14 hours and 38 minutes of darkness, a decrease of one minute and 25 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a chance of snow before 11am, then a chance of rain and sleet between 11am and noon, then rain likely after noon. Cloudy 🌧, with a high of 38 degrees at 2pm. Five degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around February 21st. Southeast wind 7 to 9 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow and sleet accumulation of less than a half inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 31 degrees. The record high of 67 was set in 2020. 12.8 inches of snow fell back in 2011.❄

Sounds like an awesome day tomorrow. As long as I get my steps 👣 in what do I care I live in the city. It rains and snows and is generally sloppy in the city these days.🌨️ Winter isn’t what it once was.

That said I’m excited about getting out of town this weekend. 🌲Going to be cold but good weather Saturday for getting out of town. Need to check the oil on the truck but other than that it seems like it will be a good weekend.

In four weeks on February 8 the sun will be setting in the west-southwest (250°) at 5:19 pm,🌄 which is 35 minutes and 10 seconds later then tonight. In 2021 on that day, we had mostly sunny and temperatures between 23 and 9 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 34 and 16 degrees. The record high of 52 degrees was set back in 1925.

Looking ahead, Winnie the Pooh Day 🍯 is Next Wednesday, 5 PM Sunset 🌇 is Next Wednesday, 5:30 PM Dusk 🌆 is Next Wednesday, February 🌧 is in 3 weeks, Don’t Cry over Spilled Milk Day 🥛 is a month away, March 🌨 is in 7 weeks, Ides of March ✝ is in 9 weeks, Average High is 70 🐮 is in 17 weeks, Pack Rat Day 🐀 is in 18 weeks, Fathers Day 👨 is in 5 months, Summer ️⛱️ is in 23 weeks, Hottest Time of the Year 😅 is in 25 weeks, Dog Days of Summer 🌻 is in 25 weeks, World Population Day 👩‍👩‍👧‍👧 is in 6 months, Average High Falls To 79 ️Degrees ⛱️️️ is in 33 weeks, September 11th 🇺🇸 is in 8 months, More Night then Day 🌌 is in 37 weeks, Last Sunset After 6:30 PM 🌆 is in 38 weeks, Average High is 55 🍂 is in 42 weeks, November 🥧 is in 42 weeks, Day After Election Day 🛀 is in 43 weeks, Veterans Day 🇺🇸 is in 10 months and Saint Nicholas Day 🎅 is in 47 weeks.

I am digging the thought of summer in 23 weeks and the Potholers once again. ⛺ Or maybe just a weekend at the House Pond Campsite. Though I kind of wish for something new for a change but what it will be that I do not know. I’m just so tired of the ordinary.

Darkening Skies Thru the Woods

I was reading the latest silliness about the gas stove ban that isn’t

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I was reading the latest silliness about the gas stove ban that isn’t

There are very legitimate concerns about gas stoves with their open flames burning in enclosed locations. While natural gas and propane burn quite clean, they are fossil fuels and they still produce nitrogen dioxide which can trigger asthma attacks and cause health impacts. Also, with the more and more natural gas coming from fracking, often in radioactive formations, there is a risk of bringing radon into one’s home.

Years ago, with drafty old homes this was not such a problem. But more houses are often much tighter, so you have greater risk of having both radon and nitrogen oxides in your house. While heat exchangers do help bring in outside air, depending on the system, there may not be very good airflow in and out of every kitchen. Plus more and more people use air conditioning, which doesn’t allow as much airflow as open screen windows do.

Plus, now is the time to decarbonize our economy. A single gas stove doesn’t produce much carbon dioxide, but if there are millions of homes that heat with gas, a little bit adds up. And more significantly — at least in colder locations, gas stoves are a natural combination with gas-fired heating. Natural gas heating is a significant source of both gas consumption and carbon emissions — which is why carbon emissions spike in northern United States every winter. Plus, not only does natural gas produce carbon, but natural gas lines are inherently leaky, and natural gas is a powerful warming agent.

Inductance cooking has many of the same benefits of gas stoves but is much less polluting. It can be used in most locations that gas cooking has been used in the past, and has a fraction of the carbon output. Any place that has 230 volt electricity, can easily accommodate such stoves. And for off-grid and remote locations, the amount of propane gas used in conventional gas stoves is pretty de minis compared to all the propane currently used to heat and cook food in millions of urban and suburban households and businesses.

Where do New Yorkers move to when they leave the state? 🚚

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Where do New Yorkers move to when they leave the state? 🚚

According to the 2019 Migration Flows, for out of state migration.

Top 10 States

  1. New Jersey 67,084
  2.  California 48,898
  3. Florida 48,576
  4.  Pennsylvania 46,080
  5.  Massachusetts 32,960
  6.  Connecticut 29,474
  7. Texas 23,816
  8. Virginia 20,010
  9.  North Carolina 19,044
  10. Georgia 15,024

Top 10 Counties

  1. Los Angeles County, California 15,624
  2. Fairfield County, Connecticut 15,584
  3. Hudson County, New Jersey 13,174
  4. Bergen County, New Jersey 12,662
  5. Middlesex County, Massachusetts 10,710
  6. Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania 9,636
  7. Cook County, Illinois 8,614
  8. Essex County, New Jersey 8,120
  9. District of Columbia, District of Columbia 7,684
  10. Suffolk County, Massachusetts 6,834

NPR

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Traffic congestion got much worse in 2022 but is still below pre-pandemic levels : NPR

CHICAGO — Millions of Americans returning to the office but getting there primarily by driving instead of taking public transit led to a significant increase in traffic congestion last year, according to a new report.

The typical U.S. driver lost 51 hours to congestion in 2022, about an hour each week. That's 15 more hours lost to congestion than in 2021, and all that time wasted in traffic jams hit pocketbooks hard, costing the average American driver $869 in lost time, according to 2022 Global Traffic Scorecard by the mobility analytics firm Inrix.

But traffic congestion across the country is still only about half of what it was before the Covid-19 pandemic, as the report indicates the amount of time drivers lost on average in bumper-to-bumper gridlock was about 50 percent below 2019's.