Rode down to the hardware store bright and early this morning, to get some hardware to mount the bike lock on. It was refreshing but cold. It was a good excuse to get some exercise and feel the cold on my face, even if they didn’t have size bolt that I need.

Good morning! Partly cloudy and 17 degrees in Delmar, NY. ⛅ Calm wind. Things will start to thaw out at tomorrow around 8 am. 🌡️ No weather above freezing though for this weekend. And maybe snow later on. I’m still hoping that it stops early enough that I can ride in tomorrow, as yesterday the snow was gone off the bike trail, though I do need to top off the brake fluid on my bike as my front brake sin’t working.

Today will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a high of 32 degrees at 3pm. Six degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around January 15th. Cold but not that cold. Calm wind becoming south around 6 mph in the afternoon. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 33 degrees. The record high of 61 was set in 2015. 8.2 inches of snow fell back in 1968.❄

Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:52 am with sun having an altitude of 24.1° from the due south horizon (-46.7° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 13.4 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:38 pm with the sun in the southwest (231°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (239°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:24 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 25 seconds with dusk around 4:54 pm, which is 16 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waining Gibbous 🌖 Moon in the northeast (54°) at an altitude of 4° from the horizon, 234,367 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:31 pm. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 31 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 7 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 26 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will snow likely, mainly after 1am. Cloudy 🌨, with a low of 27 degrees at 8pm. Four degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 2nd. Southeast wind 3 to 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of around an inch possible. In 2023, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became light rain by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 33 degrees. The record low of -11 occurred back in 1917.

I am thinking about taking off the second half of the week to go camping, 🏕 or at least spend less time in the office, as the year comes to a close. So far the second half of the week looks nice, though maybe snowy. ⛄ Winter camping is fun, as long as I’m somewhere I don’t have to worry about getting stuck. And it’s not too cold with the wind. Regardless, I have to use the time up before the end of the year, so if it’s really cold and wet, I can stay home and read. 📕

On December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge collapsed under the weight of rush-hour traffic, resulting in the deaths of 46 people. 🌉 Two of the victims were never found. The Silver Bridge was an eyebar-chain suspension bridge built in 1928 and named for the color of its aluminum paint. The bridge carried U.S. Route 35 over the Ohio River, connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio. Investigation of the wreckage pointed to the cause of the collapse being the failure of a single eyebar in a suspension chain, due to a small defect 0.1 inches (2.5 mm) deep. Analysis showed that the bridge was carrying much heavier loads than it had originally been designed for and had been poorly maintained. The collapsed bridge was replaced by the Silver Memorial Bridge, which was completed in 1969.

Also, today in 2000, was an the end of an era at the infamous Chernobyl Power Plant generating power. ☢ Reactor No. 4 was the site of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and the power plant is now within a large restricted area known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Both the zone and the former power plant are administered by the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management. The three remaining reactors remained operational after the accident; all three were eventually shut down by 2000, and the plant remains in the process of decommissioning as of 2019. Nuclear clean-up is scheduled for completion in 2065. The toxic legacy remains, long after the nuclear power plant stops generating.

As previously noted, next Sunday is Days are Getting Longer ☀️ when the sun will be setting at 4:27 pm with dusk at 4:57 pm. On that day in 2023, we had partly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 34 and 19 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 36 degrees. We hit a record high of 60 back in 1990.