Good morning! Yeah, it’s Friday! Next Friday Starts March 🌨. That’s always a month of change, quite variable. Cloudy now and 36 degrees in Delmar. ⛅ There is a northwest breeze at 8 mph. 🍃. The current wind chill is 22. There are 2 inches of snow on the ground. ☃ Will it be gone by evening? Maybe ️Temperatures will drop below freezing at around 6 pm. ☃️

The morning started out quite gray but cleared up for a while and is now gray again. At at least it gets light out pretty early. 🌄Two weeks, one day until the time change. I think I got a fairly good night’s sleep. No sleeping pill last night. I’m trying to break the habit so it doesn’t become a problem and honestly getting to bed at a proper hour is more important than occasionally waking up at night.😴

I’m glad it’s a Friday. Thirteen weeks to the start of Memorial Day Weekend. 🏕 I can feel the swarms of black flies already. It better not rain that weekend, or I think we should order protests of the National Weather Headquarters. 🗯The weeks are going quickly which is good because I want the snow to go so I can truck cap camp, especially before the black flies return. I miss the nights in the wilderness, the fires and waking up and cooking a breakfast on the griddle.🍳

Today will be partly sunny 🌞, with a high of 44 degrees at 2pm. Eight degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around March 15th. Northwest wind around 9 mph. Seems like it will become a pretty nice day. A year ago, we had light snow showers for a good portion of the day. The high last year was 40 degrees. The record high of 68 was set in 1997. 14.8 inches of snow fell back in 1893.❄

The sun will set at 5:36 pm with dusk around 6:05 pm, which is one minute and 16 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 36 degrees. There will be a northwest breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 10 hours and 55 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 47 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 20 degrees at 6am. One degree above normal, which is similar to a typical night around February 25th. Northwest wind around 6 mph becoming calm after midnight. In 2018, we had mostly clear in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 19 degrees. The record low of -16 occurred back in 1972.

Tomorrow for the Save the Pine Bush Hike 🌲 will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 43 degrees at 2pm. Six degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around March 12th. Calm wind becoming south around 5 mph in the afternoon. A year ago, we had light snow. The high last year was 37 degrees. The record high of 69 was set in 2017. 6.9 inches of snow fell back in 1935.❄

Looking ahead to Sunday, rain, mainly before 1pm. High near 50.☔ Southeast wind 7 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New precipitation amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. Typical average high for the weekend is 37 degrees.

Looks like yesterday’s warmth melted away most of the snow and ice from my truck, so the solar panel is topping off the accessory battery keeping that healthy. Things should be snow free for the Save the Pine Bush hike.👍That’s good as I’m tired of having to dig snow off the truck. I do also want to give Big Red a bath on Sunday, to wash off the salt, as I expect by then the salt will be off the roads from the rain, and I should be home Sunday evening before the salters are back out again, or so I hope.🛁 Next week looks cold and salty, but I plan to leave Big Red off next weekend.

This morning I had corn bread waffles and fruit for a change. 🍌🍒 Last night though I fell off the wagon and had some burritos and chicken nuggets. I did go for the even walk after that, but I didn’t ride the exercise bike. I got back and continued to work on planning out the isolator relay control module building.

For the isolator relay control module I’m building for the truck I’ve decided to use a small relay rather than a transistor to drive it. I don’t have any PNP transistors and I have to switch the hot side to control the relay. ⌨ I decided to also integrate a Bluetooth module so I can easily check the battery voltages from my phone and are considering adding ACS 7212 Hal effect sensors to monitor current from the solar panel and load to the truck cap to see how much the battery is charging and how much load there is. I may start building the board this weekend and start testing things inside. 🔋 Obviously I wouldn’t want to have a bug in the code and get stranded somewhere in the wilderness with a discharged battery, so test — test — test before wiring.

As previously noted, next Friday is March 🌨 (NOTICE SNOW EMOJI !!) when the sun will be setting at 5:45 pm with dusk at 6:13 pm. On that day in 2018, we had partly cloudy skies and mild conditions with a few snow showers and temperatures between 50 and 35 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 39 degrees. We hit a record high of 66 back in 2017.

In four weeks on March 22 the sun will be setting at 7:10 pm (Daylight Savings Time),🌄 which is one hour, 33 minutes and 34 seconds later then today. In 2018 on that day, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 45 and 27 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 47 and 28 degrees. The record high of 81 degrees was set back in 2012.

Looking ahead, March 🌨 is in 1 weeks Ides of March ✝ is in 3 weeks, Earth Day 🌎 is in 2 months, Memorial Day Weekend Starts 🏕️ is in 13 weeks, Average High is 80 🏖 is in 4 months and Dog Days of Summer 🌻 is in 19 weeks.