Good morning! Today is Columbus Day 🍂. Canuck Thanksgiving 🍁 up North, because it gets so cold up north, and they are a lot further along then they are down in the states in chopping corn. 🌽Overcast, gray, and 57 degrees in North Syracuse. ☁ Calm wind. The dew point is 55 degrees. Clearing late today.

Doesn’t it seem like Columbus Day is earlier this year then many years? ⏳I think this is one of the earliest days of the year it can be — sometimes it’s as late as October 14th. Been kind of mild October, so it’s not surprising that it seems early this year.🍂 Autumns just aren’t as cold as they once were. But then again the same thing is true year around, with the climate changing. Welcome to the future. They told us 2020 was going to be in the distance, but now it seems like it’s almost tomorrow. 🤒First we have to get through that 2018 election though first. All the important to save for retirement I guess, because 2040 will be here nearly as quickly, and we all know very little is going to be done to address climate change or the guberments growing deficit problems. 🤑

Columbus Day will have isolated showers, with thunderstorms also possible after 1pm. Patchy dense fog before 10am. Otherwise, mostly cloudy ☁, with a high of 73 degrees at 4pm. 10 degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 65 at 4pm. East wind 3 to 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies with some clearing in the afternoon. It was somewhat humid. The high last year was 80 degrees. The record high of 80 was set in 2017.

The sun will set at 6:32 pm with dusk around 7:01 pm, which is one minute and 43 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 Much earlier now that Columbus Day At sunset, look for partly clear skies with a chance of thunderstorms 🌦 and 71 degrees. The dew point will be 65 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 8 mph. Today will have 11 hours and 21 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 53 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have isolated showers and thunderstorms before 11pm, then isolated showers between 11pm and 2am. Mostly cloudy , with a low of 66 degrees at 4am. 24 degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 65 at 6pm. South wind around 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2017, we had mostly clear skies with more clouds in the early hours of the next day. It was somewhat humid. It got down to 62 degrees. The record low of 27 occurred back in 2001.

Much of this week is expected to reach the 80s at least here in Syracuse. 😎 Maybe with some more sun. That would be nice. I am hoping to get out of the office a bit, although so far the color has been fairly retarded 🍂 due to warm temperatures and the lower elevations in this area.

Since adjusting the headlights, night driving has become much more pleasant, with the road lit up so much better and its much easier to see. 💡 I can’t believe how much brighter the road is now. The glare from other cars doesn’t seem so bad now that the road isn’t nearly as dark. I didn’t realize how bad the old aim on the headlights was until I adjusted them. That said, I might find once I am doing more rural driving, I need to bring up the headlights aim a bit just because I will be outrunning the headlights with the low-beams on at 55 MPH.

There are 29 days, 12 hours, and 28 minutes until the poll close on Election Day in New York. 🗳 Or so the big ticker in my office says, counting it down to the seconds. Less than a month from now I will be packing my gear for my week long road trip. It will be nice to get packed up and then head out on my road trip. I would like to leave as soon as Thursday, but probably Friday is most reasonable option. Obviously, I could get called into the office and not be able to leave until later and I do need a day or two to pack and get ready after coming home from Syracuse.

I am leaning towards spending a night or maybe two at Stony Pond in Nelson, 🏕 then heading West on the old US Route 20 to Montezuma Bird Sanctuary, 🐦 then down to the Finger Lakes National Forest for the first part of the trip. Then west through the southern Finger Lakes to spend some time in Allegany County. 🐺 Maybe see some of those hairy women. No, I am just looking for some solitude, and listening to the gun fire in the woods, some of it mine hopefully.

Looking ahead, there are 5 weeks until Veterans Day Observed (Monday) 🇺🇸 when the sun will be setting at 4:43 pm with dusk at 5:13 pm (Standard Time). On that day in 2017, we had mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 44 and 22 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 49 degrees. We hit a record high of 68 back in 1909.