Contginued mild and Holiday Cranberry Spiced Tea

Good Morning Augusta

This morning we have partly cloudy skies with a high of 39°F. Winds are light and variable.

Tonight we'll have cloudy skies with a low of 28°F. Winds will remain light and variable.

The readings from my weather instruments are:

Humidity is 65%, the Dew Point is 18.0ºF and the outdoor temp is 28.2ºF.

The wind direction is  North between 1.8 MPH and 2.5 MPH, with a wind chill of 27.7°F.

The Relative pressure is 30.28, the Absolute pressure is 30.07 and rising with a weather graphic indicating sun.

The UV rating is 1 out of 16, Sunrise is 6:58 a.m. Sunset is 4:00 p.m., Moonrise is 5:26 p.m., Moonset is 7:41 a.m. We have a FULL MOON that is 99% illuminated.

The RAW METAR readings from the city of Augusta's airport are:

METAR KAUG 041153Z AUTO 35005KT 10SM CLR M04/M06 A3042 RMK AO2 SLP308 T10391061 11022 21039 53019

Visibility is 10.0 Miles / 16.1 kilometers with clear skies.

We didn't receive any rain or snow here over the past 24 hours

Space Weather for this morning is:

Today's Solar flux is 70, the solar wind speed is 314 Kilometers per second and the chance of a solar storm is 1%.

This Spiced Tea recipe is one that we make every holiday season by the gallon.  The handy part of it is that once you make it, you simply refrigerate it and dip out servings to heat up whenever you're in the mood for some.  Of course, this time of year, the refrigerator gets kind of full of other things so, rather than displace any of the goodies in the fridge with a gallon of this tea, just take the pot of tea outside and cover it up with some snow, or keep it in the unheated foyer, whichever is easier to get to.

Holiday CRANBERRY SPICED TEA

1 lb. fresh or frozen cranberries

3 quarts cold water

2 cups orange juice

2 ⅛ cups pineapple juice

¼ cup lemon juice

2 cups white sugar (or less; I use 1 ½ cups)

1 (3 inch) cinnamon stick

1 tsp whole cloves

½ tsp whole allspice berries

1.         Place cranberries and water in a large pot.  Bring to a boil and cook just until the berries pop, about 5 minutes.  Remove from the heat and let stand at room temperature until cold, several hours or overnight.

2.         Strain out the cranberries and stir the orange juice, lemon juice and sugar into the liquid.  Add the cinnamon stick, whole cloves and allspice berries.  Bring to a boil.  It is ready to serve at this point, but even better if allowed to sit overnight, refrigerated.

Note:  I usually can't find plain pineapple juice, so I use a bottled orange pineapple juice with the rest of the orange and lemon juices.  As long as the total amount of juice is the same and adjusted to taste, it has worked out nicely.