Good morning! As we head into the 9 o’clock hour, it’s now up to nine degrees. Bright and sunny this morning, which makes the cold not seem too bad. I was up and going, so I could catch an earlier bus downtown to get a jump start on the work.

While it’s bright and sunny this morning, look for increasing clouds, with a high near 22. Wind chill values as low as -2. South wind 5 to 9 mph. Sunset will be at 5:23 pm with twilight at 5:52 pm which is one minute and 18 seconds later then yesterday.

It only looks colder from here for the long weekend. Ironically, it will get nicer for Tuesday with a modest warmup expected. Tonight will have some scattered snow showers, mainly between 10pm and 3am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 9. South wind 6 to 9 mph becoming west after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Little or no snow accumulation expected.

There are 1 month, 8 days until Palm Sunday. Easter sure is early this year but it sometimes happens that way. At least eventually winter will come to an end. Already, the sun is coming up earlier and setting later, making days a little less short.

Happy Birthday to Phil Zimmerman who invented Pretty Good Privacy, the app that helps keep Internet communications secure. He turns 61 years old today.

Today in 1963, the National Park Service starts construction of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. It’s strange to think there was a time not that long ago that St. Louis was not identified by the massive arch. Had Nelson Rockefeller’s original plan stood, Albany would have gotten it’s own arch of freedom as part of the Empire State Plaza. It would have been pretty cool, although the final plaza when built was also quite magnificent.