Good morning! Merry Christmas. Snow and 29 degrees in Delmar. There is a west breeze at 10 mph. The skies will clear around 1 pm.

It’s a White Christmas, first one in Albany in nearly a decade, 2008 and 2009 were the only years in recent when we’ve had snow on the ground. Keep Christ in mind on this holiday. I hope Santa brought you lots of cheap tacky plastic junk and shinny wrapping paper that will be fun to watch burning out back in the snow. Embers might blow in the wind though but everything is covered with snow. Next Monday is New Years Day 2018. 

Christmas Day will snow, mainly before 10am, then scattered snow showers after 11am. The snow could be heavy at times. Areas of blowing snow after 11am. High of 35 degrees at 12pm. Two degrees above normal. Windy, with a west wind 10 to 15 mph increasing to 24 to 29 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 44 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies, clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 43 degrees. The record high of 66 was set in 1889. 19.2 inches of snow fell back in 2002.

The sun will set at 4:28 pm with dusk around 5:00 pm, which is 39 seconds later than yesterday. At sunset, look for partly clear conditions and 28 degrees. The wind chill around sunset will be 14. Breezy, 24 mph breeze from the west with gusts up to 37mph. Today will have 9 hours and 4 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 19 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have isolated snow showers between midnight and 3am. Partly cloudy, with a low of 14 degrees at 5am. Five degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around -1 at 5am; Breezy, with a west wind 17 to 22 mph decreasing to 10 to 15 mph in the evening. Winds could gust as high as 33 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2016, we had clear skies. It got down to 14 degrees. The record low of -17 occurred back in 1914.

After Christmas, cold weather is expected with many days with temperatures running as much as 20 to 25 degrees below normal, struggling to reach the teens many days. It’s called winter after all.

I am going to stay home for Christmas. There is probably enough snow to use my skis but at least for now it looks like it might be too cold. I bought the stuff to make Marconi and Cheese for dinner, so I may end up doing that later on. Maybe I should bundle up and head out on the skis, I’ll have to decide how much the wind picks up later. I think camping is off the table for today though. 

Finally figured out why the dimmer code I was working on was broken. It turns out that the IR Remote library breaks the PWM on pins 3 and 11. I may be able to change the timer loop that the IR receiver code uses to fix it or I will have to get out my soldering iron and change the pins. I spent a lot of time working out this bug but finally the internet came through with an answer. 

We have about 4 inches of snow in Delmar, my landlord just plowed the driveway. So I’m glad I parked on the grass so I won’t get plowed in and when I take my truck out tomorrow I will have a snow free place to park. 

As previously noted, next Monday is New Years Day 2018 when the sun will be setting at 4:34 pm with dusk at 5:05 pm. On that day in 2017, we had rain, snow, mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 38 and 20 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 31 degrees. We hit a record high of 57 back in 1966.