Good morning! As previously noted, today is typically the Coldest Day of Year (Avg. 14-30 degrees). Three weeks to the Blue Moon. You will have to find that old Marcel’s record or play it on Youtube. Mostly sunny and 15 degrees in Delmar, NY. Calm wind. Pretty close to normal today, if not a bit warmer, with ample sunshine. It certainly makes it feel like there is hope for spring time, at least at some point in the future, as we reach the coldest day on average for the year.

Only 69 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!

Today will be sunny, with a high of 35 degrees at 3pm. Five degrees above normal. Not too bad. Light south wind increasing to 5 to 9 mph in the morning. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. The high last year was 38 degrees. The record high of 55 was set in 2016. That day was nice, but I don’t expect all that many 55 degrees in January, although with the heat bubble building in, maybe it will be warm for the second half of the month. 7.3 inches of snow fell back in 1984.

The sun will set at 4:42 pm with dusk around 5:13 pm, which is one minute and 5 seconds later than yesterday. At sunset, look for partly sunny conditions and 34 degrees. There will be a south breeze at 9 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 18 minutes of daytime, a decrease of one minute and 23 seconds over yesterday.

Definitely a nice morning, but alas I didn’t get to bed until too late but at least I slept well. Just having the phone on vibrate seemed to sufficient to wake me up. I was kind of getting tired of that Hollies Bus Stop every morning. The blues of the LED strip along the ceiling in my apartment do seem to make going to bed easier and getting up early easy, but I do need to get to bed earlier.

I got a free ride to work, as the fare box was broken on the bus. Well, I can’t complain about that because living paycheck to paycheck means every $1.30 counts. It sounds stupid but every dollar counts, as is never any extra in the budget. And it’s a beautiful morning.

I was thinking about going to the car wash today with the warmer weather upon us but not with the forecast that is described below. For one it would mean that the roads will still be covered with salt not to mention being quite icy.

Tonight will have a chance of freezing rain between 8pm and 3am, then a chance of rain after 3am. Mostly cloudy, with a low of 30 degrees at 7pm. 16 degrees above normal. South wind 9 to 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2017, we had cloudy skies. It got down to 37 degrees. The record low of -25 occurred back in 1968.

I am thinking of many novelty projects that I can make with those Max7219 modules. Those displays are fairly compact but easily read across the room. Very bright too. Maybe too bright at night, I wonder if I can put a resistor in there, or better yet a transistor controlled by PWM to dim. Overall, power consumption aren’t bad, using about 80 milliamps per four matrix modules with the Arduino consuming 40 mA per my volt meter. So if I built a three module display, which can display 20-30 characters at once, it will only consume about 280 mA or 1.4 watts. That can be easily powered by any USB charger or port.

Some of the projects I’m envisioning are countdown clocks, quotes, and other novelty things that involve words. I might even build a “reading” robot for my niece, that could spit out messages based on the day and time, wishing her good morning and night. Maybe mount the modules in a brightly painted case with giggly eyes and some other LEDs. That’s a great way to promote reading. Or even at home, I think it would be fun to be woken up each morning to a friendly, “Good morning, Andy. Happy Monday!”. Etc.

Camping this weekend seems increasingly unlikely, due to the cold weather on Sunday to Martin Luther King Day, and ice expected on Saturday. But who knows. I am still waiting for that thaw, although it does seem like there will be some serious snow melt come Friday. Maybe I could do Schoharie County, if there is no snow left for Saturday night, and hit one of the campsites not too far back. May go hiking on Sunday, if it’s snow free. Who knows with the weather lately.

As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until the Blue Moon when the sun will be setting at 5:08 pm with dusk at 5:38 pm. On that day in 2017, we had snow, mist, cloudy skies and temperatures between 26 and 11 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 32 degrees. We hit a record high of 58 back in 1913.