Good morning! Happy First Day of Winter ☃️! I think it started around 5:15 this morning, well before I was awake. 87 days until spring, days get longer tomorrow. 🌷 Next Monday is 4:30 PM Sunset 🌆. Mostly cloudy and 29 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ Calm wind. There are 21 inches of snow on the ground. ☃ Definitely melting with the higher temperatures yesterday and the sun ☀ on Saturday. Not so much sun today but maybe some later. ️Things will start to thaw out at around 10 am. 🌡️

I don’t know if the sidewalks fully plowed at this point ❄ but I think enough are done to get out for my morning walk 🚶🏻. At any rate I no longer have an excuse to skip my walk at least in the daytime hours, they’re done past the high school. 🚸 I’m hoping by evening that Elm Avenue will finally have its sidewalks plowed – the snow storm was last week.

Not a lot of big things on the agenda today for work, 💼 but I think things will pop up as the day progresses. Tomorrow I plan to work down at the library as it will be sunny ☀ and relatively warm. I should also get propane on Tuesday and supplies for camping 🏕 should I head north on Christmas Day. 🎅🏻 Hoping that the snow and warm temperatures will reduce the size of snow banks up north dramatically.

Today will have patchy fog before 10am. Otherwise, mostly cloudy ⛅ , with a high of 35 degrees at 1pm. One degree above normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 19th. Light south wind. Maybe some more sun later. A year ago, we had light rain in the morning, which became mostly clear by afternoon. The high last year was 24 degrees. The record high of 62 was set in 2018. 6.6 inches of snow fell back in 2008.❄

Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:55 am with sun having an altitude of 23.9° from the due south horizon (-46.9° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 13.5 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:40 pm with the sun in the southwest (230°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (238°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:26 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 26 seconds with dusk around 4:57 pm, which is 30 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the First Quarter 🌓 Moon in the south-southeast (160°) at an altitude of 40° from the horizon, 248,971 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:34 pm. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 34 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Tomorrow will have 9 hours and 3 minutes of daytime, an increase of 3 seconds over today.

Tonight will have a slight chance of snow after 1am. Mostly cloudy 🌨, with a low of 27 degrees at 4am. Eight degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 2nd. Calm wind. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 10 degrees. The record low of -8 occurred back in 1955.

Cool this weekend with temperatures running 6 degrees below normal but otherwise sunny. 😃 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 26. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 29. Typical average high for the weekend is 33 degrees.

I am hoping to get north this weekend. 🌨 Winter camping is fun, and while it might be cold I will dress warmly 🧣🧤 and have the propane heater for keeping the tent toasty. ♨ Nights are long but they can be fun this time of year.

As previously noted, next Monday is 4:30 PM Sunset 🌆 with dusk at 5:01 pm. On that day in 2019, we had partly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 44 and 27 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 32 degrees. We hit a record high of 61 back in 1982.