Roundtop Mountain

This is the Roundtop Mountain, next to Katerskill High Point. Not to be confused with the other Cario Roundtop, far below.

Taken on Saturday March 27, 2010 at North South Lake.

March 14, 2023 8 PM Update

Good evening! Snow showers and 33 degrees in Delmar. โ„ Still just a light breeze around, 7 mph from the northwest. The really strong stuff is still a ways off. There are 6 inches of snow on the ground. โ˜ƒ We had some melting mid-day with the rain, but we got a few extra inches this evening. ๏ธThe skies will clear tomorrow around 10 am.

The big dramatic snow storm was well whatever. โ›„ Maybe enough snow to make snow men, but I don’t know. The sidewalks were fine for both the morning and evening walks, ๐Ÿƒ I got in 5.6 miles today. The office was closed today from the snow ๐Ÿ“š so I stayed home and did several hours of reading. The evening walk — which I did around 5 PM was pretty cold and wet with really sloppy snow. And mid-day it was all rain. Cleaned my truck off twice today of snow, and shoveled out the turn around so I shouldn’t have any more to do come Sunday.

One week until calendar spring. ๐Ÿ“† It’s still possible we get yet another snow storm, but after March 15th the snow fall records get smaller and smaller and in recent decades, there is less and less of a record of significant snow falls. Today certainly wasn’t a record breaking snow fall. Maybe in higher elevations, I heard they got more in the Adirondacks. The strong winds and blizzard like conditions have yet to happen. Maybe the wind will pick up over night, we could even loose power but I have my doubts. And by then I’ll be soundly asleep. ๐Ÿ›Œ

Tonight will snow, mainly before midnight. ๐ŸŒจ Low of 28 degrees at 6am. Typical for tonight. Blustery, with a northwest wind 18 to 21 mph, with gusts as high as 37 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Total nighttime snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 31 degrees. The record low of 1 occurred back in 1993.

Tonight will have a Last Quarter ๐ŸŒ— Moon with 49% illuminated. The Blue ๐ŸŒ Moon is on Friday, March 31. The darkest hour is at 1:06 am, followed by dawn at 6:43 am, and sun starting to rise at 7:11 am in the east (93ยฐ) and last for 2 minutes and 54 seconds. Sunrise is one minute and 43 seconds earlier than yesterday. ๐ŸŒ„ The golden hour ends at 7:48 am with sun in the east (99ยฐ). Tonight will have 12 hours and 4 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 55 seconds over last night.

The morning walk tomorrow will not be pleasant. ๐Ÿšถโ€โ™€๏ธI think that just the fact of the matter. But I’ll bundle up and get moving. I will survive. It’s been 55 days now of walking 5 miles or more each day. So I don’t want to break the record any time soon if I can avoid it. It might be hard come later in March though with my work schedule but I’ll do the best I can.

Tomorrow will be partly sunny ๐ŸŒž, with a high of 36 degrees at 4pm. Nine degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around February 17th. Breezy, with a northwest wind 17 to 22 mph, with gusts as high as 47 mph. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with a few breaks of sun the afternoon. The high last year was 53 degrees. The record high of 72 was set in 2019. 10.4 inches of snow fell back in 1916.โ„

Two weeks ago I bought some low fat vanilla yogurt as a snack. A small bowl ๐Ÿงis 80 or maybe 100 calories and I finally opened it up and it was delicious ๐Ÿ˜‹. It’s a tub with 5 servings so what it means plastic garbage it’s not that much and those polypropylene containers burn fine. ๐Ÿ”ฅ Not going to be an every day thing though as it has some added sugar so I have to be careful about that and make sure to limit the portion size and just add extra fruit. But the vanilla taste is amazing.

Today in 1900, the Gold Standard Act is ratified, ๐Ÿ’ฑ placing United States currency on the gold standard. It would last until the 1930s when the widely held belief was the gold standard was too restrictive on the economy and limited the ability of the government to stimulate or slow the economy, as now is the case with the battle against inflation. Truth is the economy had grown too big for pegging currency to gold, ๐Ÿ’ฐ by the time Breton Woods rolled around, they really didn’t have much of an ability to continue it. And truth be told, I’ve always though buying gold is like putting all your money in one basket — really it’s a commodity and one with limited use beside the desire of some to hoard it. Jewelry and computer chips really are the only real use of gold, besides hoarding which can be fickle.

In four weeks on April 11 the sun will be setting in the west-northwest (282ยฐ) at 7:33 pm,๐ŸŒ„ which is 32 minutes and 12 seconds later then tonight. In 2022 on that day, we had mostly sunny, rain showers and temperatures between 61 and 29 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 57 and 35 degrees. The record high of 87 degrees was set back in 2017.

Looking ahead, First Day of Spring ๐Ÿ’ฎ is Next Tuesday, Average High is 50 ๐ŸŒธ is Next Tuesday, Mothers Day ๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€ is in 2 months, Primary Day ๐Ÿ—ณ๏ธ is in 14 weeks, Independence Day ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ is in 16 weeks, World Population Day ๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€๐Ÿ‘งโ€๐Ÿ‘ง is in 17 weeks, National Nude Day ๐Ÿ‘ฑ is in 4 months, August ๐ŸŒป is in 20 weeks, Halloween ๐ŸŽƒ is in 33 weeks, Average High is 50 ๐Ÿ‚ is in 8 months, Election Day ๐Ÿ—ณ๏ธ is in 8 months, Repeal of Prohibition Day ๐Ÿบ is in 38 weeks and Boxing Day ๐ŸฅŠ is in 41 weeks.

We’re all going to die, it’s winter ๐ŸŒจ

We’re all going to die, it’s winter ๐ŸŒจ

I am not fan of shut everything down every time it snows in the winter. Roads get snow covered, commutes are longer. Boots get wet, things are slushy. Commutes especially in the outlying areas can be challenging, some workers might have to call in for the day. But let’s be realistic, we all live in Upstate NY and I don’t think a modestly snowy day should be an excuse to shut everything down and be a disruptive as possible to the economy. Especially these days with the warming climate, and overly optimistic snow predictions that rarely come to be.

Maybe I should just embrace my day off. I save my bus fare, I didn’t have to work or even venture on out. But it certainly didn’t seem like an extreme snow storm like everybody was saying it would be. But then again I live in city where it never snows much and when it snows the streets and sidewalks are quickly cleaned. The buses run regardless of the weather. But I concede it would have been cold at 5 PM waiting downtown by those windy buildings, especially if we had gotten the wind they had promised in the meteorology departments. But I just find all this doomer talk on the television to be obnoxious.

Big Snow Banks

There were some big snow banks on Stevens Road in Berne. They got a lot of snow up here.

Taken on Sunday March 18, 2018 at Berne.