Maidin mhaith, Ulster County.
At 5:55 this morning, December 10, the weather is a bone-cold 24 degrees, It hurts to breathe. The grass, stiff from the long cold plunge of night, resists like steel wool underfoot.
Some warmth will be coming with the sunrise beginning at 7:14. The moon will set behind the Catskills to the west at 9:44 a.m.
Throughout the course of the day the temperature looks to rise to around 37 degrees.
Anticipating the sunset at 4:26 p.m., the temperature begins to fall again after 3 p.m.
Low tide bottoms out at 8:45 a.m.
For the mountain forecast, now we go to Bjorn Jorgensen out at Belleayre Mountain.
Bjorn, how is your pulled ankle? Have you made the summit this morning?”
Bjorn: I have, with some stubborn difficulty and frank confession of my condition, I used a gondola. I have only now just returned to a steaming cup of Rooibos. Karl and I wait for the snow together. I have by my side a telescope, too, to keep watch.
Johannes: Oh, yes. Your snowman. The weather is preserving him, then?
Bjorn: “Yes, It is minus five Celsius at the summit, and Karl is quite pleased with himself. He has been outfitted with an old bowler hat set at a rakish angle and smokes a smart meerschaum pipe with a carved fox. I think he must still need a monocle. But yes, the snow will fall tomorrow, and I expect Karl to grow in stature.
Johannes: All this time the snow guns have been making their own snow, though. So you must expect many skiers this weekend?
Bjorn: The snow guns are making the powder from freezing water and spraying into the air in great flurries.
Johannes: All the better to cover the runs for weekend skiers, Bjorn.
Bjorn: It’s a child’s imitation in the grand scheme of things and does not satisfy me. Johannes, when they have learned to tether the clouds above the mountain and make them snow, even then….
Johannes: It’s against nature, is it? Well they’ve already found a way. Scientists sprinkle the clouds with silver iodide and compel them to rain.
Bjorn: So I have heard. There too will come a time when they will use drones. Evil-looking wasps which go buzzing through the cotton. And in some clever way they will have endeavored to chain the clouds to tree stumps, thus interrupting their travels. I can imagine it, Johannes. Each clever invention further diminishes the poetry of nature.
Johannes: I understand you, Bjorn. Like holding a Latin mass to English. Comprehension makes the mystery smaller.
Bjirn: There’s a woman climbing the slope with ski poles. She seems quite dedicated …. Well, If it must be, to feed the clouds, I would prefer them unchained, and an employee to go among them in a hot-air balloon, casting great fistfulls of the silver iodide which I imagine looks like glitter, or shavings of metal. Moving from cloud to cloud, tending them with consideration.
Johannes: You’ve created cloudfarmers, Bjorn. Conscientious of their transient flock.
What clouds there are in the sky are pushed south from a northeasterly wind blowing at eight knots.
For those with watercraft still out of drydock who are brave enough to face the biting river wind, a high tide of three feet and nine inches arrives at 2:35 p.m.
The moon will rise again also in the east, somewhat decreased from last night’s stature at 6:22 p.m. but it will appear much exaggerated through proximity, two hours after sunset.
Join the family! 
