Good morning! Happy Summer ️⛱️ ! Well, I guess officially yesterday was the first day of summer, but today will certainly be a hot one. Two weeks to Hottest Time of the Year 😅. That said, today is expected to be a hot one with a shit ton of humidity but chilly and rainy tomorrow. Partly sunny and 73 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a south breeze at 9 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 68 degrees. The muggy weather ends tomorrow around 5 am. 😓

Out for the morning walk, 🚶‍♀️ and it’s a hot one already, especially that last lap around when I’m right in the sun walking past the park and ride. 🚏 Still no idea when service is going to come back, but hopefully before I’m commuting five days a week which will happen eventually. I thought about heading into the office today 🏢 but I think I’ll work from home with the fan and lots of cold drinks. This way during down time at work I can finish putting away my camping gear, ⛺ and getting ready for next trip by cleaning the coolers etc.

Today will have a chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 5pm. Mostly sunny and hot 🌞, with a high of 90 degrees at 3pm. Nine degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 71 at 10am. Welcome to the swamp. South wind 9 to 16 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. It was somewhat humid. The high last year was 92 degrees. The record high of 97 was set in 1938.

I thought seriously about going to work in the office today, with the heat 😅 but I think with that breeze I should be okay working from home. Tomorrow my phone resets for the mobile broadband, so I plenty of bandwidth. If there is a Zoom I might look like a sweaty pig, but so be it. 🐷

It’s tough getting back in the routine, 👨‍💼 but at least I’m home. It was a nice long weekend, a holiday weekend to boot, but I think I’ll try to do several more long weekends to the Adirondacks and elsewhere, especially if it involves days at the potholers. 🏊‍♀️ It was so nice cooling off at the potholers yesterday. If I had known hot today is going to be, I might have planned an extra day up north — maybe driven up early Friday morning, so I could have my three nights in one campsite extend until Saturday.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:58 pm with sun having an altitude of 70.8° from the due south horizon. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:55 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (297°). 📸 The sunset is in the northwest (304°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:37 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 28 seconds with dusk around 9:11 pm, which is 13 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Full 🌝 Moon in the south-southeast (160°) at an altitude of 27° from the horizon, 226,296 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:58 pm. At sunset, look out for thunderstorms 🌩 and temperatures around 82 degrees. The dew point will be 69 degrees. There will be a south breeze at 10 mph. Today will have 15 hours and 19 minutes of daytime, no change from yesterday.

If I have some time during the day, 🔋 I want to trace back the bum connection on the exciter wire and fix it. 🔧 Nothing is obvious, I think its a bad connection on the exciter wire, as testing it last night showed the relay was good. I am thinking one of the butt connectors on the wire is bad, maybe it’s rotted away. That seems to a problem at times, especially if I used copper coated aluminum wire, which I really shouldn’t have done.

Tonight will have showers and thunderstorms likely before 3am, then a chance of showers. Some of the storms could produce small hail, gusty winds, and heavy rain. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 62 degrees at 6am. Three degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 69 at 6pm. South wind 7 to 10 mph becoming west after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. In 2020, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It was humid. It got down to 70 degrees. The record low of 37 occurred back in 1940.

This weekend looks hot and unstable. 🌩 Saturday, a chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 84. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Maximum dew point of 66 at 11am. Sunday, showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm. Mostly cloudy, very humid with a high near 80. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Maximum dew point of 69 at 10am. Typical average high for the weekend is 82 degrees.

As I just got back from the Adirondacks, 🌄 I am thinking this weekend I will stay in town. The weather looks dicey and hot. I might do the Nature Bus up to Thacher Park this weekend with a book I am reading, and just dash under a pavilion should it start to rain. 📚I might walk up to Thompson’s Lake and go for a swim, then read down by the escarpment. The free bus is easy and convenient — if I get on/off at Five Rivers that is an opportunity for some early morning/late afternoon nature study too. 🐸

The following week, which is Independence Weekend 🎆 I am debating about my plans. One thought that comes to mind is to work up in Speculator on Friday and then head from Speculator to Piseco-Powley Road for the long weekend. I like it there, although I worry campsites will fill up quickly for the holiday weekend. 🏕 Another option I’m considering is tent camping at a state forest in Schoharie County and spending a good portion of the weekend at Mine Kill Pool. I haven’t done a lot of tent camping in a long while. I figure the handful of campsites at Burnt-Rossman would likely fill up early during that holiday weekend. Plus I haven’t used the tent in a long time. As I will likely use the big propane tank, I don’t want to haul it back too far in the woods, but maybe that ridge I camped at back in 2018.

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until Hottest Time of the Year 😅 when the sun will be setting at 8:36 pm with dusk at 9:10 pm. On that day in 2020, we had hot, mostly sunny and temperatures between 91 and 62 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 84 degrees. We hit a record high of 99 back in 1919.