Good morning! Happy February. All eyes are focused on Punxsutawney tomorrow. It is cloudy with 48 degrees in Delmar. Today will have scattered showers, mainly before noon. Cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with a high near 50. South wind 5 to 14 mph becoming northwest in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 24 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.

Sunset will be at 5:09 pm with twilight at 5:38 pm which is one minute and 19 seconds later then yesterday. Tonight we will have a Waining Crescent Moon with 42% illuminated. It will rise at 1:11 am. The New Moon is on next Monday. Dark few nights ahead, although it will be good for viewing stars especially on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

There are 2 months until April Fools Day. This day in 1968, the New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad are merged to form Penn Central Transportation. At this point due to competition or highways and airplanes, the railroad all were in dire straits. The merger of these formerly massive railroads was part of the effort to save both passenger and freight service in the private realm.

Another pretty dark and gray morning. I wish the sun would shine more. It’s just so dark and depressing this winter. Most winters are colder and with more snow, but they also have blue skies.

Leaning towards staying in town next weekend if only because the budget remains tight and it’s winter. If it’s exceptionally nice I might go up to the Adirondacks after I do the oil change, but we will see. I could keep putting it off, but I really want to get some fresh oil in the engine, because I don’t like to let it drop below 20% oil life remaining.

On the bright side of things, I have lots of new maps for the blog this week.