Good evening! Mostly clear and 78 degrees in Delmar. There is a south breeze at 9 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 72 degrees. The muggy weather ends Friday around noontime. 😓Talk about a sultry early September evening. Heat like this isn’t uncommon for August but Christ’s sake it’s the first day of school for the kiddos.

Tonight will be partly cloudy ☁, with a low of 75 degrees at 4am. 20 degrees above normal. Maybe be one of the hottest nights on record ever in Albany. Maximum dew point of 72 at 10pm. South wind 6 to 9 mph. In 2017, we had cloudy skies. It got down to 58 degrees. The record low of 38 occurred back in 1938.

I did some cleaning and straightening up in the kitchen, trying to get things orderly and secured from mice before my departure. I’ve also been tackling any hints of mildew and cleaning some various parts of my kitchen that should have been done a while back.🍱 Still have some stuff to sort through on the truck though. I am paranoid about cleaning my kitchen before I leave because I worry about mildew popping up while I’m gone. In college when I worked in the asbestos business, I saw a horror film about vacation homes being left empty for months on end and disasters occurring due to leaks not being detected for months on end.

Got more humid as the night progressed. Maybe it was from sweating from cleaning but I was feeling hot by the time I sat out back with a a beer. 🍺 Ended up heading back in, stripping down to my boxers with the fan going full blast. Yeah, it burns through sixty watts and hour but it’s still cheaper than air conditioning. And much cheaper than having to use the heat on a frigid night.

Tonight will have a Waning Crescent Moon 🌘 with 17% illuminated. The moon will rise at 2:25 am. The New Moon is on Saturday night. The Harvest Moon 🌝 is on Sunday, September 23rd. The sun will rise at 6:25 am with the first light at 5:56 am, which is one minute and 4 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 11 hours and 4 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 48 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms before 9am, then a slight chance of showers between 9am and 11am, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 11am. Partly sunny 😎, with a high of 84 degrees at 11am. Nine degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 74 at 11am. Yuck. Southwest wind 5 to 8 mph becoming northwest in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. A year ago, we had cloudy skies, clearing in the afternoon. It became sticky as the day progressed. The high last year was 63 degrees. The record high of 91 was set in 1983.

Got the oil changed and tires rotated on Big Red today. 🚗 I’m already for the autumn season now, I don’t have to have Red inspected until the end of November as I waited for November 1st for my inspection sticker last year. I hated getting my truck inspected at a random shop every year depending on where I was for work. I’ll deal with that after campaign and my November vacation. Dropping the truck off at Denooyer Chevy was easy enough although parking there is a bitch because they have cars everywhere in the lot. I hate going to dealerships just because they are so hard to drive around their lots. But it was only a short walk to catch the Route 1 bus downtown and it seemed relatively fast, really not that much worse than the 905 express. I was a little freaked out by the technician talking to somebody on the phone with low oil pressure in their car; I’ll check the filter and oil levels before I leave town on Saturday just for my sanity sake.

Don’t like the heat? Cool this weekend with temperatures running 6 degrees below normal but otherwise sunny. 😀 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 71. Maximum dew point of 49 at 8am. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 67. Maximum dew point of 47 at 5pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 75 degrees. I can’t wait for the nice weather this weekend even if I have to work part of the weekend, maybe leaving a bit of time for fishing 🎣 or hiking. I am going to be near my favorite swamp in Central NY for catching bull heads. Maybe by the weekend their might even be a little bit of color in spots.

Last night I noticed that I pulled lose one of wires from the fuse on the solar panel. I retighted that back up. 🔌I think it may have gotten loosen up when I was climbing on the truck to tie on the kayak. I’m done kayaking for the year I think but I’ll keep a hex key on me in case that pulls loose. Solar seems to be charging fine as soon as it was reconnected although it seems like the output is dropping off earlier in the evening now that the sun is setting earlier.

Thinking a bit about my November trip. Probably he Western NY state land where I can spend a few days there, get to know the land and hunt it. Also want to spend some time down at the Alleghany National Forest and maybe camp at Hicks Run Campground and see the Elk. I’ll have to get a free DCNR permit for that.

In four weeks on October 3 the sun will be setting at 6:32 pm,🌄 which is 49 minutes and 34 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2017 on that day, we had heavy fog, fog, patches of fog, mist, mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 72 and 41 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 65 and 44 degrees. The record high of 83 degrees was set back in 1967.

Looking ahead, Last Sunset After 6:30 PM 🌆 is in 4 weeks, Halloween 🛥️ is in 8 weeks, Day After Election Day 🛀 is in 9 weeks, Boxing Day 🥊 is in 16 weeks and Inauguration Day 2021 👴🏻 is in 124 weeks.