Good morning! Yeah, it’s Friday! Aren’t you glad the weekend is coming? That said, with work from home, it’s not quite the same although I have to say I do like having my day free and not being busy with various work projects. Six weeks to Last Day of Winter 🏂 . Clouds and 31 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a south breeze at 13 mph. 🍃. There are 7 inches of snow on the ground. ☃ ️The skies will clear around 7 pm.

A dreary winter morning. What a surprise. Maybe some snow later, although I’m not certain based on looking at the latest forecast models. It looks like it might even clear out by midday and be fairly sunny in the afternoon and mild. But it’s all about timing as they say.

Still I’m out for my morning walk. Not a whole lot has changed from yesterday, although after the warmer weather of recent, the sidewalks are free of snow but there is a lot of patches of black ice that I should be paying more attention to while I walk. At least I haven’t fallen yet, and it’s a lot easier to see the black ice now then at night.

Yesterday was a fairly quiet day. As I promised myself, I did get grocery shopping and spent a number of hours working down at the library. I ended up installing LibreOffice and Firefox on the Windows side of my laptop — I couldn’t believe how careful you have to tread when installing Windows programs. There is so much spyware and fake sites for anything Windows, including within the Playstore. I much prefer working on Linux, but when I need to access and edit files on the server over the VPN, it is much easier to have something local I can run instead of going back and forth to Google Sheets. Plus I’m a big supporter of using Open Source software.

Today will have a chance of snow showers, mixing with rain after 11am, then gradually ending. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a high of 39 degrees at 3pm. Seven degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around March 1st. South wind 6 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 41 degrees. The record high of 59 was set in 1890. 10.4 inches of snow fell back in 2014.❄

I turned down the heat yesterday, thinking with the warmer weather it will be nice to save a little on the utility bills. The little electric heater I bought a few months ago works well for warming a small space, and while it is noticable on the utility bill, I think it’s still less to heat up a portion of my bedroom rather then keep the whole apartment real warm, especially with the temperatures are modest. That said, looking at the long range, I’m going to need more heat come later in the week. Next will be sunny but cold, kind of the last week of January. But at least hopefully the water heater won’t puke all over my living room in the apartment.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:10 pm with sun having an altitude of 31.6° from the due south horizon (-39.2° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 9.8 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 4:34 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (242°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (249°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 5:15 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 7 seconds with dusk around 5:43 pm, which is one minute and 19 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:18 pm. At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 37 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 6 mph. Today will have 10 hours and 10 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 28 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 21 degrees at 6am. Five degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 1st. South wind 6 to 8 mph becoming west after midnight. In 2020, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mist by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 27 degrees. The record low of -20 occurred back in 1948.

Tomorrow will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 33 degrees at 1pm. Typical for Tomorrow. South wind 7 to 10 mph becoming west in the afternoon. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 33 degrees. The record high of 55 was set in 1991. 10.8 inches of snow fell back in 1978.❄

Looking ahead to Sunday, a chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 31. Light and variable wind becoming south around 6 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Typical average high for the weekend is 33 degrees.

I am thinking about heading out to the folks house on Saturday, for Sunday dinner as I’m not sure how nice the weather is going to be on Sunday, and because I’m thinking of doing a zoom with John Wolcott on Sunday. I am thinking hiking on Saturday afternoon, or more likely skiing. Maybe Sunday morning I could wash my truck.

🌹🌻🌼Only 43 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼 As the song goes, Day by Day. As much as I don’t like the cold, especially the heating bills, I do like sunny days better. But I’m really looking forward to winter coming to a close so I can spend more time out in the wilderness.

Looking ahead, there are 6 weeks until Last Day of Winter 🏂 when the sun will be setting at 7:06 pm with dusk at 7:34 pm (Daylight Savings Time). On that day in 2020, we had rain and temperatures between 51 and 38 degrees. Somehow that seems like a fitting way to end winter. Typically, the high temperature is 46 degrees. We hit a record high of 78 back in 2012.