How’s your eclipse viewing?

by philg

I had some worked planned in Austin, Texas over the weekend, which dovetailed nicely with the predicted eclipse and the generally clear skies in this dry part of the country.

(Another way to get into prime eclipse-viewing position is to be convicted of a crime and sent to prison. “New York inmates who claimed lockdown was religious violation will be able to see eclipse” (USA Today):

Inmates at a New York prison who sued the state corrections department over a planned lockdown during the Monday total solar eclipse will be able to see the celestial event after all.

The lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in upstate New York claimed that the lockdown, which would have prevented many statewide inmates from witnessing Monday’s solar eclipse, constituted a violation of religious rights.

“For many, this eclipse is a moment of monumental religious significance that cannot be overlooked or dismissed out of hand,” according to the lawsuit, which listed six plaintiffs of various religious faiths.

Corrections officials agreed Thursday to permit the plaintiffs – a Baptist, a Muslim, a Seventh-Day Adventist, two practitioners of Santeria and an atheist – to view the eclipse in exchange for the lawsuit’s dismissal, department spokesman Thomas Mailey told USA TODAY.

Practitioners of Santeria also trace historical ties to chanting rituals performed during a solar eclipse. For atheists, an eclipse may not be a time for worship, but it’s still a time to marvel about the natural wonders of the universe, the lawsuit contended.

)

Nervous nail-biting began on Wednesday, April 3 based on the cloud forecast at https://eclipseweather.info/eclipse/. It appears that God loves Bernie Sanders and fellow progressives in and around Burlington, Vermont. God also loves folks in Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. Why does God hate Texans?

I’m testifying as a software expert witness in Federal District Court in Newark, New Jersey on Wednesday. Getting to EWR from Austin on Tuesday was $2,000 in economy. Flights to JFK were about $1200, with no difference in cost between economy and first class. But it would have been well worth it (to the client!) if the weather had been clear.

https://www.pivotalweather.com/eclipse2024/ is also an interesting site. The “NWS Blend” cloud cover forecast as of the evening of April 4 wasn’t promising for just west of Austin:

Pivotal displayed a tempting map of Vermont and Maine:

Based on these forecasts, I canceled the Austin flights and booked a trip into Boston. From there we departed to Houlton, Maine on the Canadian border (passport and blackface kit packed just in case). The terminal forecast from 8 pm Sunday:

KHUL 072340Z 0800/0824 35008KT P6SM SKC
FM081100 VRB03KT P6SM FEW150
FM081500 30007KT P6SM FEW250

The relevant part is that from 15Z (GMT; subtract 4 hours to get 11:00 am EDT) on the 8th the wind would be from magnetic 300 (NW) at 7 knots, better than 6 statute miles of visibility, and a few clouds at 25,000′ above the airport.

Who has plans for North Dakota or Greenland in 2044? Don’t want to wait that long? Looks like Spain is the smartest place to be (the weather in western Iceland is not reliable!) on August 12, 2026. Has inflation gotten so severe that hotels won’t let people book more than a few months in advance?

Readers: let’s hear your heroic eclipse-viewing tales!

Post-trip update: The weather was just as forecast. We had severe clear weather and a great view of totality as well as all phases of partial. The town organized a warm welcome for thousands of visitors.

All Labs Matter:

And a partial eclipse of the sun by the moon(ey):

Related:

9 thoughts on “How’s your eclipse viewing?”

  2. 1. USA Today in a week: Three blind inmates sue New York prison for inadequate compliance with ADA requirements.

    2. Burlington viewing was, indeed, fantastic.

  3. I was at Mason, TX. Really good. Some high clouds but generally very good. Was worse down in San Antonio. However, you should not have relied so much on the cloud prediction. Many of the lower local clouds disappear close to totality due to the cooling down effect of the eclipse (which of course the weather models do not predict).

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santer%C3%ADa
      Christian views of Santería have been largely negative,[480] and in Cuba, it has faced much opposition from the Roman Catholic clerical establishment over the centuries.[481] Many Cuban intellectuals and academics also take a dim view of Santería.[482]…Pervasive stereotypes link Santería to criminal activity,[484] and its rituals for self-protection have been adopted by various groups involved in narcotics trafficking within the U.S.

      Also one of two well-known songs by “Sublime,” released 1997-01-07:

  5. Friends from California came into Austin for the eclipse. Camped at my 40 acres 24 miles from town. Left to view at Comfort, TX o the way home. Clear there. Cloudy in Austin but the speed of transition was awesome. The best moment: Vampire Weekend was playing an open-air show. They stopped for the eclipse; the bats under the Congress Avenue Bridge got confused, thought it was sundown and flew over the audience.

  6. How’s your eclipse viewing? We punched a hole in a piece of paper, made a pinhole camera and observed a 30% cut out of the sun. This was somewhere in Northern Nevada.
    Why does God hate Texans? They vote for Trump.
    Who has plans for North Dakota or Greenland in 2044? Pavel.
    Don’t want to wait that long? No.
    Has inflation gotten so severe that hotels won’t let people book more than a few months in advance? No.

  7. After God graced Dallas with ~4 minutes of awesome clear skies totality in 2024, inflated expectations make under 2 minutes in Spain sound barely worth traveling outside the great state. 20 year cloud cover history statistic for Spain _looks_ better, but nobody messes with Texas, where everything is bigger…

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