Good morning! Happy Thursday. Next Thursday is Latest Sunrise of the Winter 🌄️. Aren’t you glad that these super dark mornings are coming to an end in Trump’s America? Partly sunny and 28 degrees in Delmar. Calm wind.Things will start to thaw out at around 1 pm. 🌡️ Then a big ice up tonight!

Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 33 degrees at 2pm. One degree above normal, which is similiar to a typical day around December 26th. Doesn’t sound really warm. North wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the morning. A year ago, we had sunny skies. The high last year was 17 degrees. The record high of 60 was set in 1895. 15 inches of snow fell back in 1894.❄ That was a few years before my time, a century before they banned smoking in people’s offices. Back when you could have two cigarettes while reading the morning papers. I’ve heard they still do that in China.

The sun will set at 4:29 pm with dusk around 5:01 pm, which is 43 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 31 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Today will have 9 hours and 4 minutes of daytime, a increase of 27 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have a chance of snow before 3am, then snow and sleet likely between 3am and 4am, then freezing rain and sleet after 4am. 🌥 Low of 28 degrees at 7pm. 11 degrees above normal, which is similiar to a typical night around November 29th. Light southeast wind increasing to 5 to 10 mph in the evening. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Little or no ice accumulation expected. New snow and sleet accumulation of less than one inch possible. In 2017, we had clear skies. It got down to -5 degrees. The record low of -14 occurred back in 1951. Sounds like a fun commute. But I ain’t driving although I doubt I’ll be walking down to the express bus stop.

I’m still chewing over my long weekend plans for the final weekend of 2018. I still like the idea of heading up to the Adirondacks and camping ⛺ along NY 8 but I’m worried about parking if there is still high snow banks around. It doesn’t seem like there will be a ton of snow but it could be very icy. I don’t think I would need a lot of supplies for camping, maybe just a handful of additional food stuffs and a tank of gasoline. Maybe hunt a little bit, do some short hikes with the microspikes on. 🏃 Going to be cold enough it won’t be really muddy out. That said if it’s going to be really gray and cloudy out I think I’d rather stay home and maybe do a day trip and work on electronics projects, especially now that I have all the components sorted out. 🔬 I really want to master using Bluetooth to make the various lighting fixtures in my bedroom to talk to each other, all ultimately controlled by an Android app I write for my phone.

While there are commercial products that do this, I like building stuff myself as it gives me full control over how it works and it’s power consumption levels. ✊Plus I don’t have internet access at home and most connected devices require the internet. I think it’s a bit creepy having devices connected to the internet as it makes it easy for hackers to break into your home. 💻

As previously noted, next Thursday is Latest Sunrise of the Winter 🌄️ when the sun will be setting at 4:34 pm with dusk at 5:06 pm. On that day in 2018, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 22 and 7 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 31 degrees. We hit a record high of 61 back in 1913. Doesn’t get that warm in late December.