Today my area dipped to -11° F in the early morning after a high yesterday around 4°F. Four days in a row with lows below zero F. Looking back at local climate data from the NWS for the greater KC area this is one the coldest series of days here in over ten years.
Looking back at 2023 the weather was a big problem for my night sky adventures. Nearly every major event I was interested in was clouded out: the Perseid meteor shower, the annular eclipse in October, the Okie-Tex star party, the Geminid meteor shower. What will this year be like?
Clouds give way to stars last night. Image above is from my GMN camera around 21:30 CDT and surprisingly the camera was mostly clear of snow. Temperature at that time was around -4° F. It had snowed about an inch during the day and when I looked at the camera around sunset it was still partially covered. I was outside around the time of this frame. I was curious how my solar charge system and battery were doing, they seemed healthy from their apps. Good to see everything working after spending days in the frigid cold temperatures. Most consumer electronics are not rated for extreme cold temperatures. Try leaving your phone outside at 0 degrees F and see if it works after an hour.