Good evening! Clear and 9 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a northwest breeze at 13 mph. The current wind chill is -7. Cold evening with that wind. The good news is that wind is expected to die down through the night and somewhat warmer weather is expected for tomorrow. 

With the cold, I just stayed home and read about 200 pages of an E. J. Dionne book about the tea party and the lack of civility today. I also worked on some code, did some cleaning, went down to the library for a bit. Also made up some maps of the Middle East, as I wanted to familiarize myself better with the topography of the places regularly in the news. You hear constantly about Iraq, but heck I don’t know where three quarters of those places are. Now I do know and I will start sharing those maps. 

Tonight will be clear, with a low of 2 degrees at 6am. 20 degrees below normal. Makes up for those well above normal days. Maximum wind chill around -9 at 3am; Northwest wind 8 to 13 mph. In 2016, it got down to 17 degrees under mostly cloudy skies. The record low of -12 occurred back in 1948.

First Quarter Moon tonight with 48% illuminated. The moon will set around 1:31 am. Too cold to go out and view it. The Full “Worm” Moon is on Sunday, March 12th. The sun will rise at 6:24 am with the first light at 5:55 am, which is one minute and 40 seconds earlier than yesterday. Tonight will have 12 hours and 32 minutes of night, a decrease of 2 minutes and 53 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be sunny, with a high of 30 degrees at 3pm. 10 degrees below normal. But much warmer than today. Maximum wind chill around -11 at 6am; Northwest wind around 8 mph. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies and a high of 35 degrees. The record high of 71 was set in 1964. 8.6 inches of snow fell back in 1917.

I’m thinking about going to Hannacroix Preserve tomorrow after I wash my truck and go grocery shopping. Cold enough I can just leave the food in the back of my truck after I go shopping. With all the fresh road salt they’ve applied, it’s almost not worth it. Oh, well. 

In four weeks on April 1 the sun will be setting at 7:22 pm (Daylight Savings Time), which is one hour, 32 minutes and 36 seconds later then tonight. In 2016 on that day, we had rain and temperatures between 70 and 42 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 52 and 32 degrees. The record high of 77 degrees was set back in 1986.

Looking ahead, April Fools Day is in 4 weeks, Earth Day is in 7 weeks and Independence Day is in 4 months. Sparklers are a lot of fun now that they are legal in New York. I’ll be breathing a sigh of relief once March is over. Can’t wait for camping weather.