Good morning! Happy Sunday. Cloudy around the freezing point for the morning walk down to the town park this morning. ☁ There is a south-southeast breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. There is a dusting of snow on the ground. ☃ The skies will clear tomorrow around 9 pm.

Another chilly, cold and gray day 🌫️. I think with the rain coming and all of the rain we’ve had lately it makes it extra cold. Maybe I’m just chilled through due to the heat being kept low where I live. But the calories burnt while walking 🚶 should warm me up a bit.

I didn’t sleep well last night 🛏 mainly because I was in bed by seven 7⃣ because it was cold, dark and damp last night and had no reason to stay up later. Ended up waking up in the middle of the night and listening to podcasts under the warmth of the electric blanket. With inflation, I’d rather cut the lights early and keep the heat as low as possible.

Today will have a chance of rain after 5pm. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a high of 38 degrees at 1pm. Six degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around February 21st. South wind 6 to 10 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 skies in the morning with a few breaks of sun the afternoon. The high last year was 36 degrees. The record high of 62 was set in 1906. 12.9 inches of snow fell back in 1987.❄

Usually I do Bennett Hill ⛰ on a Sunday but with the snow 🌨 coming I think I want to try to get out to the folks house for Sunday lunch 🥩 a bit earlier and it looks like there is a fair amount of snow out there. Might be difficult to get my steps 👣 in today without hiking the mountain or the evening walk. If it snows this evening then walking will be fine but I’m not sure if I will walk in the rain ☔.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:08 pm with sun having an altitude of 27.7° from the due south horizon (-43.1° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 11.4 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 4:13 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (236°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (244°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:56 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 15 seconds with dusk around 5:26 pm, which is one minute and 15 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Crescent 🌒 Moon in the west-southwest (237°) at an altitude of 4° from the horizon, 226,674 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:01 pm. At sunset, look for cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 38 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 10 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 40 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 58 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will rain and snow. 🌧 Low of 31 degrees at 6am. 16 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 30th. South wind 5 to 8 mph becoming light and variable. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 2 to 4 inches possible. In 2022, we had light snow in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 11 degrees. The record low of -20 occurred back in 1970.

Won’t impact me much even if we do get some snow 🌨. I got those dressy boots 🕴️that I wear with my suit and tie. The bus 🚍 will running. Maybe it will impact my morning walk but only if it’s rain not snow. Can’t control the weather only my attitude.

Next Sunday before dawn I will become a officially a quadragenarian. I figure the news loves to talk about octragenarians so I can use my proper prefix too. 🎂 I’m actually thinking about taking a personal day on Friday after my dentist cleaning 🪥and heading out to the woods for two nights. ⛺ Depends on how much snow there is and how cold. I can always pop on remotely from camp to work on Friday afternoon if need be if things are busy.

So yes, next Sunday is 40th Birthday 🎉 when the sun will be setting at 5:06 pm with dusk at 5:34 pm. On that day in 2022, we had very cold weather, partly sunny and temperatures between 14 and 0 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 33 degrees. We hit a record high of 54 back in 2002.

I can pour over spreadsheets and try to figure out everything for age 50 🤔 but I know not all the answers are apparent now. But I know choices now are particularly important, as everything you do compounds as time goes by. I’m well aware of this being a decade of enormous change but it’s one I should embrace and do what is right for me. Browsing catalogues and learning is largely free so I should take advantage of it as much as possible. 🧑‍🏫 Try to get out of my comfort zone more. Eat a little less.

The trend looks much colder for February ❄ but the good news is we are heading towards spring. We’ve had an exceptionally warm January and at some point the pattern had to change. Spring will arrive. 🌷