Good morning! Happy Thursday. Two weeks to August 🌻. Clouds and a few rain showers and 75 degrees in Bethlehem, NY. ☔ I doubt that I needed a rain coat but I figured be safe rather than sorry. There is a north breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 68 degrees. The skies will clear tomorrow around 9 am. Going to be super hot tomorrow. But my vacation starts then and I can always use the air conditioning while driving out there, followed by cold beverages and a fan to stay cool and maybe laying back on the hammock.

I overslept this morning as it’s pretty dark and gray. ☁ It was raining fairly hard early on. I got up at eight AM and had to dig around for my phone. 📱 I did find it. I think I turned my alarm ⏰ off for Independence Day and didn’t notice it last week because the sun was up fairly early as it was sunny.

Today will be scattered showers, mainly before 3pm. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 81 degrees at 2pm. Two degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around August 10th. Reminds us that summer won’t last forever. Maximum dew point of 69 at 2pm. North wind around 5 mph becoming light and variable. 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. The high last year was 82 degrees. The record high of 100 was set in 1953. It’s going to be warm this weekend but not 1950s warm. People ask how I love without air conditioning, I ask how did people do it during the 1950s when it was truly rare.

The sun will set at 8:29 pm with dusk around 9:02 pm, which is 45 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 77 degrees. The dew point will be 68 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 14 hours and 54 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 38 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have isolated showers before midnight. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 67 degrees at 5am. Five degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 68 at 6pm. South wind 5 to 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 55 degrees. The record low of 47 occurred back in 1875.

Today is the 200th Day of Year. Only 165 days remain. Then it will be 2020, the start of the third decade of the 21st century. 🌟 The future is ahead, that’s all there is to say. But first vacation starting tomorrow.

I want to see if I can hook up the ignitor on the new camp stove burner 🔥 tonight, along with doing the bulk of packing for vacation. I also need to run to laundromat, dollar store and grocery. I plan to do whatever packing I can tonight and will pack the coolers and propane when I leave home after work tomorrow. Not going to bring a lot of food, just enough for Friday and maybe Saturday and will buy what I need come Sunday.

On this day in 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drives his car off a bridge and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, dies. 😥 And in 1984, there were McDonald’s massacre in San Ysidro, California: In a fast-food restaurant, James Oliver Huberty opens fire, killing 21 people and injuring 19 others before being shot dead by police. 🔫After that, California implemented strict new gun control in that state, and there have been no more mass shootings. Thank God for the California legislature keeping safe.

Going to be a nice, hot summer weekend. 🏊 Saturday, isolated showers and thunderstorms before 8am, then scattered showers and thunderstorms after 2pm. Mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 95. Calm wind becoming west 5 to 7 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. Maximum dew point of 74 at 7am. Sunday, scattered showers and thunderstorms after 2pm. Partly sunny and hot, with a high near 92. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Maximum dew point of 72 at 8am. Typical average high for the weekend is 83 degrees.

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until August 🌻 when the sun will be setting at 8:15 pm with dusk at 8:47 pm. On that day in 2018, we had rain and temperatures between 80 and 70 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 82 degrees. We hit a record high of 101 back in 1933.