Good morning! What day is it? Hump Day, of course. Five weeks to Last Day with Average High of 80. Partly sunny and 81 degrees in Albany. Calm wind. The dew point is 67 degrees. It’s going to be a hot one — with no big cool down in sight. The muggy weather ends Tuesday around 1 am (end of current forecast).

Big Red is at the shop getting its brakes checked. I doubt the noise I’m hearing is a serious problem but it is annoying as all shit in stop and go traffic especially with the windows rolled down. I feel very uncertain on the value of getting the brakes inspected — but I realized it’s better to be safe — then have brake failure on vacation. I’m guessing it’s an lubrication problem but I just don’t want my brakes to fail in the Finger Lakes or have that worry all week. I have new hardware on the front brakes but the rear didn’t need it last year. I’m hoping to have my truck back by this evening.

Washed my truck last night and wasted some time down by the river with a fishing pole yesterday. Also vacuumed out the truck and cleaned out the gear. It wasn’t a bad evening, although I did have a few moments of frustration when one of the Yakima towers came apart, as I was removing the racks — without a ladder at the car wash. I did figure out how to re-assemble. I plan to pack the truck on Thursday for camping.

Today will have patchy fog before 10am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high of 90 degrees at 3pm. Seven degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 68 at 9am. Calm wind becoming southwest around 6 mph in the afternoon. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. The high last year was 79 degrees. The record high of 97 was set in 1904.

The sun will set at 8:27 pm with dusk around 9:00 pm, which is 47 seconds earlier than yesterday. At sunset, look for mostly clear conditions and 82 degrees. The dew point will be 65 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 14 hours and 51 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 42 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have patchy fog after 4am. Otherwise, partly cloudy, with a low of 67 degrees at 5am. Five degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 66 at 4am. West wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening. In 2016, we had cloudy skies. It got down to 53 degrees. The record low of 49 occurred back in 1974.

On this day, there was the Great New York City Fire of 1845: The last great fire to affect Manhattan began early in the morning and was subdued that afternoon. The fire killed 4 firefighters, 26 civilians, and destroyed 345 buildings. Always be careful with matches, in densely packed urban areas with lots of wooden buildings.

Looking ahead, there are 5 weeks until Last Day with Average High of 80 when the sun will be setting at 7:43 pm with dusk at 8:12 pm. On that day in 2016, we had mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 80 and 50 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 80 degrees. We hit a record high of 94 back in 1947.