I’ll be driving from Boston to Burlington, Vermont, on the morning of the 8th. Someone I dated a few years ago has moved there, and we’re having dinner that night. I don’t know if it’s an eclipse trip, or wanting to see her and the eclipse is a bonus. I hear that hotels in Burlington and terribly expensive, so I figure I’ll drive about halfway home and get a hotel room that night. I don’t know where I’ll be stopping, yet.
I haven’t figured out my full schedule for the day. I hear there’s a nice bicycle trail in Burlington, so maybe I’ll take my bike along.
Racing Sat morning, then leaving for western NY. Plans for Sun include a rare, light blue Mail Pouch barn, possibly a side trip into Niagra, & seeing a kid in college. If not Niagra, mebbe some wings at the Anchor Bar???
Today, Saturday March 30th, is when ten-day weather forecasts start showing up. It’s upside-down for what is typical in April, with rain in Texas and sunny skies in Ohio. Of course, we will be in the Austin area, which has a 60% chance of rain that day. We won’t change our plans, but rain would be a bummer.
The current forecast that I use currently only goes to April 5. Mix of sun and cloud for the next two days, overcast skies pissing on us for the next four, with apparent clearing later on April 5.
Which, coupled with the inherent unreliability of long-term forecasts, makes this information currently absolutely useless. I think the soonest there will be even a semi-reliable indication for this area is around Friday, April 5. With uncertainty remaining until the forecast of April 7!
I remember checking the forecast the day before my wedding. The weather was really unsettled and they were predicting thunderstorms. Later they amended that to warn of the possibility of hail!
And when the actual day arrived? Sunny but unseasonably cool. That we could live with! I assume there were battling weather fronts and they couldn’t predict which would prevail.
With uncertaintly remaining until the eclipse actually happens, very likely.
That is, sometimes we get a stretch of several days of mostly clear weather; and sometimes we get a stretch of multiple days of clouds; and quite often we get a stretch of weather that keeps going back and forth, making it effectively impossible to predict at any time.
If it’s cloudy, I’m going to put my hope in the eclipse-makes-the-clouds-go-away effect in the article linked a few posts above.
On Opening Day we went to Petco Park in San Diego. We watched the SF Giants lose to the Padres, 4-6. Haven’t missed an Opening Day since my first in 1996 and my wife’s in 1999.
We’re catching up with a lot of people in So Cal — a former coworker of mine from 30 years ago, we had dinner with her and her husband; coffee with my wife’s best friend from elementary school; a nice lunch and also hanging out with my mom; another dinner with good friends…
We next head to Las Vegas where we’ll visit some museums.
With many people on the move, this is a bit like a big migration to totality.
Me and my partner are flying from London LHR later today to Mexico City, have a few days there then head to Torreon for the eclipse. Then a few days in San Diego before heading home. It’ll be TSE no. 8 for me and no 10 for him!
I’ve been telling people all over Reddit that you don’t simply travel to the path and see an eclipse. You travel to (or live in) the path and hope you get to see an eclipse. The ones who rack up a dozen total eclipse viewings like a chain of Bailey’s Beads are either rich enough to afford frequent long distance travel, or very lucky, or both.
My wife just sent me a facebook post showing the current forecast for the 8th. Fingers crossed it looks like little to no cloud cover right now for New Brunswick!
The current WAG for Mazatlán is cirrostratus but otherwise clear. Which if so would fuzzify the viewing experience, but probably not eliminate it completely.
I’m a bit surprised at the diurnal variation; gonna be chilly there at night but hot in the afternoons.
The eclipse happens around 11am local time, so we should not yet have had time or heat enough to build afternoon large cumulus. Morning coastal stratus might be an issue. Which would suck far more than cirrostratus.
Current WAG for the area I’m aiming for is a lot of cloud cover – up until the 7th and 8th, when it turns into 20% - 30% chance of cloud cover and heading down.
I was running errands yesterday, and asked random people if they were going away for the eclipse. (Where I am will be between 97% and 99% totality.) Two people (separately) were going to a city nearby. One guy was going to the local university’s observatory. Others weren’t going anywhere, for various reasons, and several of them gave “And what if it rains?” as a reason for staying home. And I said, “Yeah, what if it rains there and doesn’t rain here?”
I greatly distrust long-range forecasts (anything more than a day or two at most) but I admit I’m keeping an eye on Environment Canada forecasts for this area. The forecast currently runs to April 6, and predicts a sunny day tomorrow followed by four days of overcast bad weather followed by a mix of sun and cloud on April 6. The earlier forecast had predicted clearing on April 5, which is now predicted to be totally overcast.
In general I agree; the forecast for 12 hours from now is the first “good” one. It’s certainly the first actionable one.
Once the date I’m interested comes into range of any forecast, I start watching that daily. I’m more interested in the trend from day to day than in today’s conclusion. If the forecast is getting more pessimistic over time that’s one bit of bad news, even if it started out excellent. Likewise if the forecast is becoming more optimistic with time that’s favorable news even if the forecast’s current expectation is still bad.
