Good morning! Happy Thursday. Feels more like a Friday to me, although I have to go to work tomorrow. That’s what happens when you work Sunday. Two weeks to the Average High is 60 🌼. Might even start to see some signs of spring at that point. Mostly sunny and 36 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a west-northwest breeze at 9 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at around 11 pm. ☃️

Not a terrible day, fairly mild I still have the heat off. 😎 May turn it back up later on though and the windows are closed as it’s not expected to be super warm. Certainly nice and sunny. I enjoyed my walk 🚶 down to the express bus 🚍. Riding a coach bus to work today with nice soft seats. 💺 Riding in comfort for sure.

Today will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 50 degrees at 4pm. Three degrees below normal, which is similiar to a typical day around March 29th. Breezy, with a west wind 9 to 14 mph increasing to 15 to 20 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 31 mph. The wind will make it feel fairly cold but the sun ☀ will help.

Continued red flag 🚩 conditions as it’s spring, dry and windy. So Pennsylvania rednecks shouldn’t be burning 🔥 their paper plates and plastic milk bottles today. Save them for after the rain, get lots of beer and big ol’ bonfire. A year ago, we had light rain in the morning, which became partly cloudy by afternoon. The high last year was 52 degrees. The record high of 79 was set in 1950. 4.3 inches of snow fell back in 2016.❄

The sun will set at 7:25 pm with dusk around 7:53 pm, which is one minute and 8 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for mostly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 44 degrees. Breezy, 17 mph breeze ⛅ from the west-northwest. With that wind, probably too cold to go to the park after work. Today will have 12 hours and 53 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 51 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 22 degrees at 4am. 11 degrees below normal, which is similiar to a typical night around March 7th. Cold but not quite record breaking cold. Northwest wind 10 to 15 mph becoming light after midnight. In 2018, we had mostly clear in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 24 degrees. The record low of 14 occurred back in 2016. It still can get pretty cold this time of year.

Tomorrow will have a slight chance of rain and snow before 11am, then rain likely. Increasing clouds 🌧, with a high of 42 degrees at 1pm. 12 degrees below normal, which is similiar to a typical day around March 11th. Light east wind becoming south 6 to 11 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Little or no snow accumulation expected. A year ago, we had light rain in the morning, which became partly cloudy by afternoon. The high last year was 39 degrees. The record high of 82 was set in 1928. 1.1 inches of snow fell back in 1914.❄

Definitely going to be a cold and wet day tomorrow. 💦 I am not camping, so I don’t mind. Sure, another nice day would be nice, but at least it will reduce the fire danger, provide moisture that with the increasingly mild weather will eventually make the city start to green up a bit. 🏞 Yesterday, I went for a walk in Washington Park and there is no signs of the tulips, 🌷and honestly things looked kind of barren with the snow gone, but things still brown and no leaves on the trees.🎋 Honestly, I didn’t expect it to look like spring in the park, but I was hoping maybe to see a few more signs of spring.

Yesterday, I went over to John Wolcott’s house, continued going through his files. 🗃 Some of them were kind of interesting, especially the ones about thePryun Library that Erastus Corning and the DOT insisted had to be torn down for the flyover ramp for Interstate 787, even though they could have located it a few feet to the west for minimal costs, and remain within engineering standards. Some of the old dutch documents aren’t much of an interest, but anything involving Mayor Corning is very fascinating.🏛 The 1960s were a very interesting time in America.

When I got home, I was pretty tired and the wind was whipping around, 🌪 so I skipped my evening walk. Sure, I was a bad person, but I was quite happy to just lay back in bed. I opened up Facebook, jumped into the swamp, and got so disgusted by what I saw on Facebook, I closed the app. 💻 I don’t even know why I go on there anymore. Maybe I’ve just become more conservative in recent years, or maybe it’s that my liberal friends have become more obnoxious. I don’t know.

I guess I shouldn’t avoid threatening ideas, but going on Facebook just makes me sick. 🤢Literally makes me want to run down to the bathroom and puke out my brains.  I mean I like looking at the cute pictures of cows and hunting stuff, 🐄 and seeing what my old friends from high school are up to, but so much of what is on there now is either advertising or abusively obnoxious political posts.

The weekend forecast continues to improve. 😎 Saturday, a chance of rain before 8am. Partly sunny, with a high near 59. Northwest wind 5 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 61. Maximum dew point of 40 at 1pm. Not a drop of humidity in that air, but that’s to be expected this time of year. Typical average high for the weekend is 54 degrees.

Spring is rapidly approaching, although there is going to be a lot of snow and ice in the mountains, and mud in lower elevations. I think I’m going to do something fun this weekend — maybe a good hike 🚶and and some fishing on Sunday. 🎣 Depending on how nice it is on Saturday morning, I might go for hike on rail trail 🚂 although I’m not sure how early it will clear out or how early I’ll be out of bed.🛏

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until Average High is 60 🌼 when the sun will be setting at 7:41 pm with dusk at 8:10 pm. On that day in 2018, we had cloudy and temperatures between 47 and 33 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 60 degrees. We hit a record high of 90 back in 1976.

Two weeks from now I’ll probably be on my trip to the Adirondacks or Central NY, although I still haven’t requested the time off.🏕 I am on the fence where to go — I kind of would like to go to the Adirondacks and the North Country, but not if there still is a lot of snow and ice to deal with. The alternative would be a mix between Charles Baker and Stoney Pond State Forest, maybe heading south to Balsam Pond, hitting up several trout streams, and more rural rather then mountain country. I mean still have plenty of time to visit the Adirondacks before summer is over. I don’t want to deal with camping with snow and ice.

In four weeks on May 2 the sun will be setting at 7:56 pm,🌄 which is 31 minutes and 48 seconds later then today. In 2018 on that day, we had hot, mostly sunny, rain showers and temperatures between 90 and 45 degrees. Last year was the record high. Typically, you have temperatures between 65 and 43 degrees.

While it may not feel like it this week, 🌷the truth is much warmer weather is likely just around the corner. Ninty degrees days are not out of the question nor is heat and humidity although I hope things green up before then so there is some shade to enjoy outside by then. And maybe a few weeks without the black flies. 🐜

Last night, I got talking to somebody about the plastic bag ban. They were worried about what they would use for trash bags, 🗑 once single-use shopping plastic bags were banned. I got thinking about it some more — and pointed out they could wash out the trash cans like people did in the olden days, without any problem. Seems like a simple solution for a silly problem. I don’t get why they always have to have trash bag liners.

Probably when I have my off-grid property, I’ll use animal feed sacks for the kitchen trash that’s going out to the burn barrel (the stuff like wrappers, bottles and packages contaminated by food), and just either use bread bags or wash out the compost container. It’s amazing how many feed bags even small hobby farms end up throwing out. It just seems like there is much too much disposable, single-use plastic out there. 🛍No sense paying for something your going to burn, after all.🔥 Maybe that’s the future, but I’m still focused on it.

After finding a plastic bag in the Pine Bush 🌲 then seeing a bunch more in the trees, I’ve really started to come around on this issue — they really need to go — as they don’t rot in nature without being burnt. Sure, I’m not happy with them charging paper bags, as I don’t always remember to have my reusable bags with me, but I’m also thinking that using a plastic milk crates, might actually be a much easier way to handle groceries. Reusable bags tend to get dirty quickly, and are somewhat flimsy, but if I could stack groceries in a crate that can be washed off, that might work really well. Groceries would be less likely to spill or get damaged when packaged in a plastic create.

Looking ahead, Average High is 60 🌼 is in 2 weeks, Pink Moon 🌕 is in 2 weeks, 8 PM Sunset 🌇 is a month away, Average High is 70 🐮 is in 6 weeks, Summer ️⛱️ is in 11 weeks, Independence Day 🇺🇸 is in 3 months, August 🌻 is in 17 weeks and Last Sunset After 7 PM 🌆 is in 26 weeks.