Good evening! Light snowand 32 degrees during the great Christmas Eve black out in Delmar. ❄ There is a west-northwest breeze at 10 mph. 🍃. There is a dusting of snow on the ground. ☃ Things will start to thaw out at tomorrow around noontime. 🌡️

As I didn’t want to sit in the darkness inside and because I really didn’t have any dinner when the power went out, 🌌 I sat out back for a while with my camp stove and heater and warmed up some dinner and hot coca.☕ Not a really cold night but I was getting tired and decided head back in and retire to bed. 💤 Pretty night when the moon came out and it started to snow. I stayed up too late last night and want to get to sleep soon.

I saw the power crew go by and it looks like points north and east of Cherry and Delaware still have power do I expect it to be on before long. But I also expect to be asleep by then.⌛ I tried to turn off the lights and unplug the strip over my bed so I won’t be awaken when the power returns.

Because it was so dark before the moon came up – close to full moon – I decided to hang Christmas lights on my truck to get into the spirit. 🎄 I’m going to leave them on all night but I expect it’s possible that the low voltage relay will kick in by morning but that’s fine, the starting battery is isolated and even the accessory battery should start charging by morning when the sun gets high enough to push power out to the solar panel.🔌 Might even be enough sun to reset the relay by morning by itself.

Power outage couldn’t have happened at a worse time for me, as I was sorting out electronic components into boxes on my floor, 🔩as they have become rather disorganized and hard to locate things. I’ve been buying these flat clear tackle boxes for that purpose of sorting them out and finally I’m getting around to having one box for LEDs, one for resistors and capacitors, one for microprocessors and other miscellaneous sensors. 📦Well I moved it out of the way with my flash light finishing up what I could. I guess at least I wasn’t cooking.

Tonight will have a slight chance of snow showers before 10pm. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 25 degrees at 6am. Seven degrees above normal, which is similiar to a typical night around December 7th. Maximum wind chill around 18 at 6am; Northwest wind 8 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2017, we had cloudy skies, clearing in the early hours of the next day. It got down to 17 degrees. The record low of -22 occurred back in 1969.

Tonight will have a Waning Gibbous Moon 🌖 with 91% illuminated. The moon will set at 9:54 am. The Last Quarter Moon is on Friday night with partly cloudy skies. The Wolf Moon 🌝 is on Sunday, January 20th. The sun will rise at 7:23 am with the first light at 6:51 am, which is 23 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 14 hours and 56 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 15 seconds over last night.

Christmas Day will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 34 degrees at 1pm. One degree above normal, which is similiar to a typical day around December 22nd. Northwest wind 5 to 8 mph. Sounds like a really nice day. Maybe I should plan some hiking. A year ago, we had cloudy skies with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 33 degrees. The record high of 66 was set in 1889. 19.2 inches of snow fell back in 2002.❄

If I do go for a hike tomorrow, I am a bit undecided where.🏃 Probably not too far as I want to hook up the under cabinet lighting I got them for Christmas. I should plan a couple hours for that before Christmas dinner at the folks house. I think the next big adventure will be the long weekend for New Years Eve. 🎇

My parents had a nice Christmas Eve party with my niece, and my sister and my inlaw. Lots of good food and hanging around opening gifts. 🎁 It seemed like a lot of fun for all involved. It was nice seeing my parents, I hadn’t seen them since my trip. My niece seemed to like the star I built her. There is a lot I don’t like about Christmas which is why I don’t celebrate it personally but I family occasions are special. And this year thanks to the black out I actually hung up some Christmas lights on my truck. I guess I did string some warm white lights into my apartment that I bought for camping but honestly they’re not really strung for the holiday. If anything, they’re for Quinn the Eskimo.

I’m having some problems with the auto renewal on my phone, 📲 so I may not post any updates until later when I get to my parents house for Christmas dinner. I think the auto renewal is fixed but I won’t know until morning. If not I’ll have to fix it tomorrow, so I won’t have internet until it’s fixed. But then I won’t have to pay for my phone service for another six months. I’m thinking about buying the full year plan and paying the $500 up front but that’s a lot of money to have locked up in a service contract to save $15 total over the six months of service I buy twice a year. ☎ I don’t have internet at home so I’m very dependent on having my phone for connection to the interwebs.

A picture perfect weekend on tap for the final weekend of the year. 😎 Saturday, partly sunny, with a high near 40. Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 30. Typical average high for the weekend is 32 degrees. Figuring I have New Years Eve off, I’m really thinking about a 3 night camping trip starting right after the Save the Pine Bush hike. Maybe the Adirondacks as I think there will be snow at Charles Baker in Brookfield and I don’t want to go back to Betty Brook in Schoharie in the winter in case there is ice, and because that valley is so deep and dark in the winter.

In four weeks on January 21 the sun will be setting at 4:55 pm,🌄 which is 28 minutes and 5 seconds later then tonight. It will be nice with the later sunsets. In 2018 on that day, we had cloudy skies, snow showers and temperatures between 43 and 29 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 30 and 14 degrees. The record high of 61 degrees was set back in 2006.

Looking ahead, New Years Eve 🎆 is in 1 week, Coldest Week of the Year 🌬 is in 3 weeks, Martin Luther King Day 🖤 is in 4 weeks, Presidents Day 👴 is in 8 weeks, Average High is 40 ☀️ is in 10 weeks, April Fools Day 🤡 is in 14 weeks, Tax Day 💰 is in 16 weeks, Earth Day 🌎 is in 17 weeks, Memorial Day Weekend Starts 🏕️ is in 5 months, Memorial Day 🇺🇸 is in 22 weeks, July 🏊🏿 is in 27 weeks, Last Sunset After 8 PM 🌆 is in 33 weeks and Average High Falls To 79 ️Degrees ⛱️️️ is in 8 months. Too soon to be thinking about autumn again.