Good afternoon! Yeah, it’s Friday! The sign in my bedroom says three weeks to March 🌨. Clearing skies and 42 degrees in Delmar. ⛅ There is a west breeze at 10 mph. 🍃. There is a just mud and lots of clumbs of snow on ground. ☃ Temperatures will drop below freezing at around 5 pm. ☃️ Hopefully with the wind, it won’t be so icy come through evening.

I am tired today because I didn’t sleep well last night. 😩 I kept waking up during the night and I had trouble sleeping. Not totally sure why, although often in the later part of the winter I have trouble sleeping. I feel much better when I can wake up in the wilderness and few times a month. It can get quite stuffy in my apartment in the winter.

Today will have a chance of showers, mainly before noon. Mostly sunny, with a temperature falling to around 34 by 5pm. ☀Breezy, with a west wind 10 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 33 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny in the morning, which became partly cloudy by afternoon. The high last year was 26 degrees. The record high of 52 was set in 1925. 14.0 inches of snow fell back in 1895.❄

The sun will set at 5:18 pm with dusk around 5:47 pm, which is one minute and 19 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 34 degrees. The wind chill around sunset will be 23. ☃️ Breezy, 20 mph breeze ⛅ from the west with gusts up to 36mph. Today will have 10 hours and 18 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 33 seconds over yesterday. A month out from now it will be over 11 hours and 33 minutes of daylight each day. Grows fast near spring time.

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 19 degrees at 6am. Three degrees above normal, which is similiar to a typical night around February 21st. Maximum wind chill around 3 at 6am; Breezy, with a west wind 21 to 24 mph, with gusts as high as 41 mph. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 2 degrees. The record low of -20 occurred back in 1934.

So we finally made it to a Friday. That’s a good thing. I had a family thing to attend to this morning🏯 but I’ll be in later today to work and might get some drinks after work depending how I feel. 🍺 I’m just a little tired. This appointment is taking longer than I expected but hopefully I’ll be able to get to work close to 1 pm.

Tomorrow will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 31 degrees at 3pm. Two degrees below normal, which is similiar to a typical day around January 30th. Breezy, with a northwest wind 15 to 24 mph, with gusts as high as 43 mph. A year ago, we had mostly sunny in the morning, which became partly cloudy by afternoon. The high last year was 30 degrees. The record high of 57 was set in 1925. 13.7 inches of snow fell back in 1906.❄

Looking ahead to Sunday, mostly sunny 🌞, with a high near 30. Calm wind becoming west around 6 mph in the morning. Typical average high for the weekend is 33 degrees.

I don’t have any real plans for the weekend although I’m thinking come Saturday I will probably stay home and if I go anywhere it just will be for a walk along the rail trail. 🚶 I’ve been trying to have a Saturday where I can avoid going anywhere with red. Sunday I’ll probably go up to Partridge Run for a nice walk, I don’t think there will be enough snow left for skiing. I thought about going to the Adirondack Outdoorsman show or even camping but I think this should be a stay in town weekend. I’m trying to drive as little as possible to save for the summer. ⛽

Maybe for the long weekend next week I will head up to the Adirondacks to ski and camp but that is still to be decided. Depends how much snow we get in the mean time and forecast for the long weekend. ⛺ It looks like a warming trend is underway and honestly its now to the point where most days should be close to above freezing or even a bit above. By next week the average high temperature is 34 or 35. I wonder if they will have the ice races up north next week? I should check that out if it’s happening on Lake Algonquin.

In four weeks on March 8 the sun will be setting at 5:53 pm,🌄 which is 35 minutes and 18 seconds later then today. In 2018 on that day, we had snow and temperatures between 35 and 29 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 41 and 23 degrees. The record high of 68 degrees was set back in 2012. Definitely looking forward to nicer weather come March and April.

I was going to go for a walk yesterday but it started to rain. 💦 Instead I stayed home and rode the exercise bike while watching some videos that I downloaded including a whole series on trapping. Then I worked on some code, maps and future blog posts.

I am continuing to work on the code that drives the lights in my bedroom. 💡 After doing some debugging I discovered that the problem with the lamp over my bed is that the code isn’t always listening for the full string coming over the Bluetooth, so I need to write some code that adds a start and end code so it keeps listening until it receives the end code. I also fixed a bug with the timer function which works properly now that I figured out the bug with the pointer not being properly initialized.

I also started doodling out some of the code for another project I’m building – a smart control for the relay that connects the accessory and starting batteries on my truck,🔋 so that when the solar panels has ample power it also will top off the starting battery and not the accessory battery alone. Good for while camping should I open and close the door a lot or should I leave the truck parked and extended period in the winter.

Looking ahead, March 🌨 is in 3 weeks, Ides of March ✝ is in 5 weeks, Memorial Day Weekend Starts 🏕️ is in 15 weeks and Dog Days of Summer 🌻 is in 21 weeks.