Good morning! Happy Cold and Sunny Thursday. Next Thursday is Boxing Day 🥊. Back to work then after Christmas 🎄. Sunny and 8 degrees at the Elm Ave Park & Ride – CDTA. ☀ There is a northwest breeze at 9 mph. 🍃 with gusts up to 26 mph 💨💨💨. The current wind chill is -5. There are 3 inches of snow on the ground. ☃ ️The deep freeze will continue until Sunday around 11 am. 🌡️

Honestly I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration because when I walked down to the express bus it didn’t seem that cold ❄. The wind had died down, it was a bit blustery earlier in the day before the sun came up, now the wind is more light and variable. Probably worse in city with the tall buildings. 🍃 In a few weeks when we get a good artic freeze in January or February, this weather will look quite warm. Negative 15 is remarkably colder then 8 above. I should probably switch over to Celsius in 2020.

The Love of the Land 😍 YouTube channel that I follow says the best winter temperature is about negative 5, eh. That’s Celsius or about 25 degrees. He’s a big coyote trapper and raises Charolais cattle among other livestock, in a pretty wet part of Ontario in the Great Lakes region. 🐮 So you can bet he appreciates a good frozen ground with no mud but not so cold that it’s miserable out. At that temperature, a freshly harvested trap line is unlikely to be frozen hard between checks 🐺 and probably in a barnyard is actually quite warm with all the waste heat cattle produce. Back in the day, farm families used to build houses over the barnyards to help provide for heating. ♨

Today will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 17 degrees at 2pm. 18 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around -5 at 8am; Northwest wind 7 to 10 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph. I’m sure once I get in the office 🏢 it will be plenty warm and if not I’ll turn up the heat. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with a few breaks of sun the afternoon. The high last year was 37 degrees. The record high of 54 was set in 1895. 7.8 inches of snow fell back in 2008.❄

The sun will set at 4:24 pm with dusk around 4:56 pm, which is 23 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for sunny skies 🌃 and temperatures around 17 degrees. There will be a northwest breeze at 7 mph with gusts up to 23mph. Today will have 9 hours and 3 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 13 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 7 degrees at 6am. 13 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around 9 at 6am; Northwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening. In 2018, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 19 degrees. The record low of -19 occurred back in 1951.

Today in 1974, Nelson Rockefeller is sworn in as Vice President of the United States under President Gerald Ford ⚖ under the provisions of the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution. He would be the nation’s second vice president who was unelected, following the Vice President becoming the President after Nixon resigned. Seems fitting to happen the day after the president just got impeached, 🙅although nobody expects him to actually get removed from office. Still, an impeachment is a rebuke of his administration.

A picture perfect weekend on tap. 😎 Saturday, partly sunny, with a high near 29. Calm wind. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 38. Typical average high for the weekend is 34 degrees. The weekend forecast now looks pretty nice, but I am still incline to stay in town because I’m planning on heading out next week — and it would still be quite cold next weekend up north in the Adirondacks. But it will be at least warm enough to hook up that voltage relay and test it on Sunday, and make sure it’s working well before I get stranded somewhere in the wilderness.

Looking ahead, there are 3 weeks until Static Electric Shock Day 🧼 when the sun will be setting at 4:39 pm with dusk at 5:11 pm. On that day in 2019, we had rain and temperatures between 40 and 32 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 30 degrees. We hit a record high of 62 back in 2008.