Good morning! What day is it? An absolutely beautiful Hump Day, of course. Next Wednesday is St. Patrick’s Day 🍀 . Mostly sunny and 30 degrees in Delmar, NY. Calm wind. Out for my morning walk, while needing a sweater and my Carhart vest, I expect soon to be opening my windows and enjoying the fresh air. I am glad that the worse of winter is behind us, and while the warm weather won’t last, it will be back before you know it.

It could be a bit warmer out, but I concede that is still the second week of March and spring is still a little ways off in New York. Our winters are cold and long. I am looking forward to nicer weather come April and May, that is that two days between the frigid cold and swarms of black flies in the wilderness. I keep telling myself I should plan my Memorial Weekend somewhere besides the Adirondacks and Green Mountains like Schoharie County back country, where there aren’t so many black flies everywhere.

Today will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 58 degrees at 3pm. 16 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 14th. If you wait, April will come. I just hope it’s not super dry, because I don’t like burn bans, because I have stuff to burn and I like a good fire. Light south wind increasing to 9 to 14 mph in the morning. A year ago, we had light rain in the morning, which became light rain by afternoon. The high last year was 63 degrees. So even warmer then is expected today. The record high of 72 was set in 1977. 5.7 inches of snow fell back in 1964.❄

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:07 pm with sun having an altitude of 43.4° from the due south horizon (-27.4° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 6.3 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. Getting shorter, shorter then my height, although not as short as a midget. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 5:19 pm with the sun in the west (259°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (266°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 5:56 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 54 seconds with dusk around 6:24 pm, which is one minute and 11 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 Next week, the hour won’t be golden until well after six o’clock with a time change. The best time to look at the stars is after 6:57 pm. Not sure how many stars, as it’s going to be cloudy tonight. At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 52 degrees. There will be a south breeze at 13 mph with gusts up to 23mph. Today will have 11 hours and 41 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 54 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a low of 40 degrees at 3am. 16 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around April 22nd. South wind 9 to 13 mph. In 2020, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 35 degrees. The record low of -10 occurred back in 1939.

Later this afternoon, I am heading out to my parents house to pet sit and see how crazy bad my allergies will get with my parents dog. They’re taking another mini-vacation to finish out their COVID-vaccination progress. Good for them, although I doubt I’ll be able to get vaccinated for at least a few more weeks. But in some ways it will be nice when things get back more to normal. Might be nice for a night hike, although I bet everything is just complete mud out there for sure. It’s kind of fun going back to my childhood home, and while I grew up in country, I’ve come to realize that the neighbors really are too close for much fun with guns, fire, or any the other good things in life.

Today in 1969, in Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King, Jr. He later unsuccessfully attempts to recant. Many conspiracy theorists think the FBI was in on the job, although certainly the record suggests that J. Edgar Hoover didn’t go out of his way to protect the Civil Rights leader, which he was convinced was a troublemaker at minimum, and a closeted communist at worse. Some of the dirty tricks played by the FBI with COINTELPRO were just evil.

A picture perfect weekend on tap. 😎 Saturday, sunny, with a high near 40. Breezy. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 38. Typical average high for the weekend is 43 degrees. Definitely thinking about this weekend and getting camping. I will wait until Friday to go shopping, at which point I can decide what supplies I need for camp. I am thinking almost of going up north on Friday and working up in Speculator, but I’m undecided on that point as there is a lot of snow up north, which means a lot of digging out a campsite as the sun still sets early before the time change. Saturday though, I’m much more likely to head north.

🌹🌻🌼Only 10 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼 It doesn’t seem all that long ago when we were talking about 60 days until spring and the air was so cold and the sidewalks so icy.

As previously noted, next Wednesday is St. Patrick’s Day 🍀 when the sun will be setting at 7:04 pm with dusk at 7:32 pm (Daylight Savings Time). On that day in 2020, we had mostly cloudy skies, snow showers and temperatures between 51 and 35 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 45 degrees. We hit a record high of 75 back in 1990.