Good evening! Just starting with the first flurries of the big snow storm and 23 degrees in Delmar. ❄ There is a north-northeast breeze at 10 mph. 🍃. The current wind chill is 9. There is a inch of snow on the ground. ☃ Things will start to thaw out at Wednesday around 11 am. 🌡️ No snow yet, but it’s definitely coming.

Tonight it will snow as the blizzard continues. The snow could be heavy at times. 🌨 Low of 22 degrees at 9pm. Five degrees above normal, which is similiar to a typical night around February 21st. Northeast wind 8 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 7 to 11 inches possible. In 2018, we had partly cloudy. It got down to 25 degrees. The record low of -22 occurred back in 1970.

Tomorrow will snow, freezing rain, and sleet, becoming all snow after noon. Areas of blowing snow after 2pm. Temperature falling to around 13 by 5pm. East wind 13 to 16 mph becoming north in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 32 mph. I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere tomorrow. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Little or no ice accumulation expected. New snow and sleet accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible. A year ago, we had cloudy in the morning, which became mostly sunny by afternoon. The high last year was 46 degrees. The record high of 53 was set in 2006. 8.7 inches of snow fell back in 1978.❄

This morning I met my parents for Saturday breakfast then took them to the store, also picking up some frozen vegetables, as I was totally out of them and I like having a lot of frozen veggies with my meals. They are low-cost, low-packaging, and easy enough to cook in the microwave or oven. Healthy too. I usually buy the biggest bags I can get in bulk, as that’s the most food for the least amount of plastic. I’m hoping to avoid going shopping this week, or at least buy the minimum extra food to save money.

In preparation for the coming snow storm I moved my truck off the driveway so the landlord can push the snow back from where I normally park, and took out the food waste, trash and recycables for the first time since I got back from my Madison County trip on New Years Eve. I didn’t want to dig out the trash cans after the snow, and the food waste was starting to rot inside.🗑 Certainly that’s more of a pressing concern when it’s warmer in the summer. I’m hoping it will a relatively lightweight snow without ice that I can brush off my truck as I can’t find my scraper, and I don’t feel like doing a lot of shoveling. The accessory battery is certainly well charged on the truck — with the limited amount of sun we had today, the voltage was a nice 14.3 volts until returned to a float voltage of 13.3 volts.😎 I really have to hook the amp meter and shunt I bought last summer to see how much power is actually coming off the panel — voltage tells you if it’s charging or the battery’s state of charge but not how much energy the panel is actually producing in watts (amps x volts).

So I thought about going out for a walk this afternoon but I was kind of lazy and when I went outside, it sure felt cold with the breeze of the impending storm. Started flipping through this rather interesting book about the ins and outs of purchasing and wiring solar panels on your own. Looks like a fascinating book. I know the basics of electricity, but not all the industry standards. I might later go out for a walk when it’s snowing around the usual evening route but for now I’m down at the library for a bit. 📚I went last night also to the library and got some books, now I’m just downloading a few more Youtube videos about farming, cabin-life, trapping, and electronics. I have this script that downloads them to the hard drive, so I can watch them later on. I am actually kind of disappointed that the snow didn’t come mid-week, and we couldn’t have the warm weather with sun for skiing that is expected mid-next week when I have to work.⛷

Starting to get a common cold I’m afraid. I’ve noticed it on and off all week, and I actually avoided going over to John Wolcott’s house so I wouldn’t get him sick. 😷 But then I felt better this morning and having a few cups off coffee right getting up. I’m trying to drink lots of water and taking it easy. I’m actually not sure if it’s a cold or just some congestion but I figured I’ll be stuck at home tomorrow, as the library will be closed I fully expect. Monday’s a holiday from work, but I have to dig out Big Red to take Dad to the doctor in the afternoon. I’m hoping the wind will be reasonable enough yesterday that I can go out skiing around town, but I don’t know the wind chills are supposed to be quite extreme especially come Monday. 🌬I already have the heat turned up a bit, and will probably leave it warmer for the foreseeable future, well until Tuesday or Wednesday when it may get back up into them mid to upper 30s. Otherwise the gas heat won’t keep up and I’ll need to turn the electric baseboard heat on upstairs.

This evening I have some small soldering and electronics projects I want to work on. I plan to finally disassembly the board the operates the warm/cool white LED string I use in my bedroom to make it easier for getting to sleep and waking up in the morning, pulling off the MOSFET transistors and soldering them on the new board powered by the LOLIN32 ESP board, which will be controlled via bluetooth and my phone rather then an IR remote. 💻Combined with the more powerful processor and larger memory, I should have many more options for the lights talking to each other in the my room. I was hoping to use the other transistors I bought a while back but I found out they were not logic grade, so driven at 3.3 volts would produce a lot of heat and a dim light output. Well, this way the existing ones that are logic-grade will get reused immediately. I did order a few more from AliExpress.

Mid-week I got my new dress shoes from Zappos. Really nice shoes for $50, probably a much nicer score then what I would have gotten had I gone to Supershoes in Northway Maul. I know people have thoughts about the good ol’ days and brick and motar retail, but I tell you if you can get stuff you actually need online for a better price, it saves on carbon, saves on unnecessary waste in the form of building and unsold merchandise. 👞 Warehouses don’t have to be pretty, they can serve a lot more people then a traditional brick and motar store. Online reviews are pretty good too. I’ll have to think about them for the next set of boots I need once my current ones — which are only a month old and in good shape — wear out. Although, I think it’s hard to beat the Brahama boots I get from Wally World, as I find expensive ones wear through the soles just as quickly, as I walk a lot and spend a lot of time out int he wilderness.

As previously noted, next Saturday is 5:30 PM Dusk 🌆 when the sun will be setting at 5:01 pm with dusk at 5:31 pm. On that day in 2018, we had sunny and temperatures between 32 and 9 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 31 degrees. We hit a record high of 59 back in 1950.