Good afternoon! Partly sunny and 57 degrees in North Syracuse. ☀ Warmed up a lot from earlier, when it was still only in the 40s to start out the day. There is a southwest breeze at 8 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at Thursday around 4 am. ☃️ Not a half bad afternoon, but it’s been busy and crazy, but the brief break at Clark Reservation State Park this morning was nice — but the leaves weren’t all that great with still a lot of green.🏞 I was hoping for a lot more color.

Tonight will have a chance of showers, mainly after 3am. Partly cloudy 🌃, with a low of 43 degrees at 6am. Three degrees above normal. South wind 5 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2017, we had mostly clear skies with more clouds in the early hours of the next day. It got down to 57 degrees. The record low of 27 occurred back in 1978.

The sun will set at 6:22 pm with dusk around 6:51 pm, which is one minute and 38 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for mostly clear skies and 55 degrees. 😃 There will be a south breeze at 6 mph. Today will have 11 hours and 4 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 49 seconds over yesterday.

Tomorrow will have showers likely. Cloudy 🌦, with a high of 60 degrees at 3pm. Typical for tomorrow. Maximum dew point of 49 at 3pm. All this rain we’ve had lately has been just obnoxious. Southeast wind 7 to 15 mph becoming southwest in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. A year ago, we had cloudy skies, clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 74 degrees. The record high of 86 was set in 1897. There was a dusting of snow in 1939.❄

There are 23 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes until the poll close on Election Day in New York. 🗳 Each day that goes by means we are one more until all the silly season comes to a conclusion. So much effort goes into elections, and then they happen, you fill in some bubbles onto a scantron, and then it goes into a scantron machine and a big bin, and it’s just history. And then we have those people on our televisions, 📺 at least those unfortunate to such things.

I am going to try to get a morning or evening out of the office at some point this week, but we will see how things go. I might do Green Lakes 🌲 one morning or maybe go back down to Jones Hill for another hike down there. I’d like to get back down in the country, especially if there is a lot of color to be seen. I miss driving those rural roads and the small towns, with the smell of wood smoke and manure. That’s why I look forward to my autumn trip so much. Camping will be great.🏕

Big Red is continuing to work well. I hate the tight turns in our parking lot, 🅿 so whenever I can, i am going to keep parking in the front lot. It just makes it easier for me. For some reason with the black top coat in the lot where I am in, it causes the wheels to chrip a lot (everybody’s car does this) and sometimes I’m feeling a bit of clatter in the wheel at hard turn, but it may just be the tight angles and the extra pressure on the wearing out ball joints or other suspension parts. I know between the rough roads and extra stress the lift kit puts on things, at some point things will need replacing. But not right away. I’ve already budgeted in money for lift-kit repairs, as I know they are inevitable. 🤑 Still I like riding up high and my big truck.

Lots of sun so I left both batteries connected to the panel, so that I can get a good solid charge on both. 🔋 With all the short trips, especially at night, I worry about the starting battery not getting a good solid charge. I am looking forward to getting that meter and wiring up so I can see how much power the panel is actually putting out ☀ and how much power I’m actually pulling from the battery at night while camping.

As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until Daylight Savings Time Ends 🌇 when the sun will be setting at 4:52 pm with dusk at 5:21 pm (Standard Time). On that day in 2017, we had partly cloudy skies and temperatures between 50 and 33 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 53 degrees. We hit a record high of 76 back in 1994.