North American Total Solar Eclipse Weather outlook

[lukebl]

I'm off to (hopefully) see the total eclipse from the town of Magog, in Quebec Province, Canada in a couple of weeks. Statistically the cloudiest part of the whole eclipse path!

I know long-term weather forecasts are wildly inaccurate, but just for fun I thought I'd look at the alternative forceasts available. Here a selection of some of them. It makes you wonder why they bother attempting long-range forecasts.

They range from 3 degrees C and snow, through to 12 degrees and rain, mist, sleet and even SUN! The BBC predicts Sleet showers with sunny intevals.

The best one is the Weather Network which predicts sun and 10 degrees. I'll have that one please!

 

Edited March 26 by lukebl

[johnturley]

The best chance of clear skies (but not guaranteed) along the track of totality, is from the Torreon area in Northern Mexico, which is one of the observation sites that Astro Trails (UK Tour Operator) are organising, and with whom we are travelling.

John 

Edited March 26 by johnturley

[lukebl]

26 minutes ago, johnturley said:

The best chance of clear skies (but not guaranteed) along the track of totality, is from the Torreon area in Northern Mexico, ,which is one of the observation sites that Astro Trails (UK Tour Operator) are organising, and with whom we are travelling.

John 

Thanks for rubbing it in. I'll be 4000km away under the clouds.

At least I saw the 2017 eclipse in Wyoming under clear skies. And the 1999 one from near Dieppe.

[johnturley]

5 hours ago, lukebl said:

Thanks for rubbing it in. I'll be 4000km away under the clouds.

At least I saw the 2017 eclipse in Wyoming under clear skies. And the 1999 one from near Dieppe.

We were originally planning to observe the eclipse from near the Niagara Falls, followed by going to New York, and then a trans USA Amtrak Rail Trip ending up in and flying back from Sam Francisco. We decided to accept a lower chance of being able to observe the eclipse, offset by visiting New York, followed by the trans USA Rail Trip and San Francisco, however Astro Trails decided to cancel this trip due to lack of interest, so we opted for the Mexico trip instead.

John 

[rrb24]

Long term forecast models now include 8 April.  From Pivotal Weather (used by storm chasers in USA):

https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?p=cloudcover&rh=2024032700&fh=gif&dpdt=&mc=

Check the animations.   Still a long way to go and the below is only a model but the High/Low pressure areas, if they develop as modelled, will have a lot of influence on the clouds moving over or not....

Roberto

 

[RichK]

In this depiction, I infer that blue is cloudy and white is clear.  The map is titled Cloud Cover Total %.  When you mouse over the map, white gives 0% and blue gives 100%.  If this forecast holds, which is admittedly far off, almost the entire path is wiped out, including Mexico.

[Naughty Neal]

Not looking good it is , if that is a predicted sceanrio.

[johnturley]

1 hour ago, Naughty Neal said:

Not looking good it is , if that is a predicted sceanrio.

The latest BBC Weather Forecast is now indicating cloudy skies in Mexico on 8 April, and rain showers in Texas, ironically the best chance of clear skies now appears to be in the Great Lakes area, but all that could change.

John 

[CCD-Freak]

The Pivotal weather site looks like it will be very useful for the eclipse and for planning trips to the dark site.

I am hoping the forecast will improve for south Texas.  I plan to be near Medina, TX at a friend's observatory.

Thanks for posting the link.

 

 

[GraemeC]

I guess Luke was lucky!