Eclipse '24

[CrimsonFox]

Where will you be when you burn out your eye sockets?

[Kodos]

I’ll be at the White House.

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by Kodos

I’ll be at the White House.

like attacking it or winning an election....or what...

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by Kodos

I’ll be at the White House.

I''ll be at the Waffle House because everybody will be outside for the eclipse

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

like attacking it or winning an election....or what...

[NobodyHere]

I should get the total eclipse for about a minute and a half where I live. I might go to an event at a local metropark but the crowds are expected to be insane here in Toledo.

[albionmoonlight]

I brought the family to an AirBnB in north Georgia for the last one. And it rained.

Gonna sit this one out.

[Castlerock]

Saw 2017 near Columbia SC. Had to outrun a thunderstorm at the last minute but saw totality. Immediately put this one on my calendar.

Had planned on seeing it in South Texas due to the highest probability of clear skies. Never bought airfare for lots of reasons. Glad I didn't because the preliminary weather reports for Texas are grim. My wife and I are talking about driving to Ohio (~9 hours?) if weather looks ok there.

[Critch]

I'm going to skip this one and just catch the next one instead.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

I brought the family to an AirBnB in north Georgia for the last one. And it rained.

Gonna sit this one out.

Yeah, I just glanced at the weather and it is suppose to be 50% cloudy in my area.

[Silver Owl]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

Yeah, I just glanced at the weather and it is suppose to be 50% cloudy in my area.

Looks like the same here in Akron, rain early and cloudy during.

[Solecismic]

Same in Canton. The models in a couple of days should be more accurate.

We were planning on watching our 34 seconds of totality from the back patio, but then this (15 Places In The U.S. That Just Lost Their Total Solar Eclipse — While Texas Gained) happened.

If correct, and why doubt that the sun has been gaining weight lately - everyone else has, our 34 seconds drops to 20 seconds and that's all with Bailey's Beads. In fact, the new orange line pictured in the Forbes story includes an overhead image of Canton in the Ohio section. That orange line passes through our next-door neighbor's house to the north. He either has a second without the Beads or he doesn't, depending on whether he uses the back door or the front door.

So we're going to travel a bit. There's a park a half-mile north of us we can walk to that will get about 45 seconds. Or we can drive to the campus where my wife works and get a little over a minute.

We're not going to try anything more advanced. Parking lots at the bigger parks will be full early. The state put this out (Experience) to model traffic based on expected visitor totals to various areas. Don't expect to get anywhere on the highways hours before or after the eclipse.

As for national cloud-cover, it's actually looking better for many areas in the path than it has, except Texas. Something to keep an eye on. We just got a quarter-inch of slush. Two nights ago, there were tornado warnings all over the place.

[molson]

I saw one in Ontario, Oregon a couple of years ago. It was going to be about a 95% eclipse here in Boise, but, I drove an hour out to Ontario for that last 5%. The news was warning everyone how crazy the roads and everything would be, but, I cruised right in no problem. I went to a nice little state park - there were a few tour buses there with Asian tourists - I think they flew in. It wasn't that crowded though. I found a path around a lake, and then a bench halfway through that, and sat there by myself through it, just me, a totally clear sky on a beautiful day, and a few ducks. It was pretty cool. I kept looking at the ducks, wondering if they'd freak out or something, but they didn't care. I can only imagine what an experience like that would have like thousands of years ago when people didn't know it was coming.

I'm glad I did it, but I wouldn't travel across the country or anything to do it again.

[CrimsonFox]

I need to go to the library to get those glasses. Walmart only had flipups that were just sunglasses

[Thomkal]

Man i think it would be hard to miss that an eclipse is coming. Weather channel has a timer to when the eclipse is supposed to happen, and has people in place since last week reporting on preparations, heck even my screensaver this morning is a picture of the last eclipse in 2017

[Kodos]

Predictably, it's clear skies here right now, but it is supposed to cloud over in the afternoon.

[Solecismic]

We're supposed to have about 45% cloud cover, which is a lot better than they were predicting yesterday. It's actually sunny out now. We're going to try to drive a half-hour to a small town west of here - get to three minutes of totality.

I know it's easy to make fun of the hype, but we've never seen one of these and the astronomy nerd of my childhood would have been talking about it for months. So it's worth the planning. Hope I got it right with roads - we're avoiding the highways.

[Ksyrup]

I was supposed to go to the office today, where it will be slightly better coverage than at home (by maybe a percentage point or so). I think we're supposed to be at 96.5% but there will be cloud cover - hopefully thin, high clouds.

I usually leave work around 3:30 to beat traffic, so I figured I'd stay home rather than be driving during the eclipse. Just trying to avoid the werewolves and locusts and whatever other stuff hits at the end of the world.

[Lathum]

Apparently dogs shouldn’t be out during it.

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I usually leave work around 3:30 to beat traffic, so I figured I'd stay home rather than be driving during the eclipse. Just trying to avoid the werewolves and locusts and whatever other stuff hits at the end of the world.

Google Maps has a toggle for the werewolves, so you can avoid them easily.

I read that the locusts are only an issue on routes with prime numbers.

[GrantDawg]

My wife texted me all apolgetic because she got me glasses but she forgot to bring them home from her office. I told her was OK because I have seen more than one already. I'm another person that doesn't get the hype.

[Kodos]

They say the sun is sometimes eclipsed by the moon,
Y'know I don't see you when she walks in the room.

[NobodyHere]

The clouds didn't really matter with the glasses. You could still see the sliver of the sun disappear and then reappear a minute or two later. It was kind of eerie to see the sun go out. But at least I had the comforting glow of the lights at the nearby Amazon facility to keep me warm.

[Ksyrup]

We've got nice thick clouds here, so we missed the peak but thanks to the sparse clouds at times, I caught several good glimpses without glasses.

[JPhillips]

90%+ coverage here and it was amazing how little the light level changed.

[Ksyrup]

We had 96% plus clouds and it basically looked like a thunderstorm rolling in.

[RainMaker]

Looking at it through the glasses was pretty damn cool.

[CrimsonFox]

This was my favorite day

[CrimsonFox]

Clear skies and 100%. I basically drove nw until I found a big cemetery. Found ond near the eclipse center from the 1800s with huge headstones. The hawks were eerie . It was so perfect when the sun was blotted out. I think I summoned a cthulhu or two and raised some dead

[Solecismic]

We went to a nature preserve in a little town called Rittman. The weather cooperated - some clouds, but completely clear where it mattered during totality. We've all seen the pictures, but it wasn't quite what we expected. It was nice. We're glad we went.

[Ghost Econ]

It was in the 80% range here. Didn't seem special, but at least the kids got a free day off.

[Edward64]

My son was closer to it than we were in Atlanta. He was able to take some nice pics. It did get noticeably darker here, maybe like 2 levels of shade.

[dubb93]

Got nearly 4 minutes of totality at my house. I really didn’t know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised. The moon with what appeared to be blue flames around it was amazing. I’d say that my experience prior to totality was 0/10 and in the future I wouldn’t even bother getting glasses if I wasn’t in the zone of totality.

[cartman]

we drove outside of Austin towards Llano, Texas, and were right on the maximum totality line. The weather outlook was really iffy. It was overcast until about 20 minutes before totality started, and the clouds broke right where the sun was. We had a few drift over, but never blocked the view for long. Got to see some solar flares around the ring. Then about 15 minutes after totality, the clouds covered everything back up, and about an hour later it started raining.

[cuervo72]

Watched it from the IMS. Totality was absolutely stunning.

The hour it took to get out of the parking lot afterward, not so much. (At the same time, it took us about as long to get to our hotel in Dayton for our trip back home as it did for our son to get back up to Lafayette.)

[thealmighty]

Had 85% cloud cover as the eclipse began. The more of the sun that was covered, the less clouds there were. By the time of totality, there were not really any clouds at all. It got a good bit cooler and somewhat darker. It was really cool. Glad I saw it since I won't be here in about 300 years when it happens around Dallas again.


BTW, for people like me whose cloud cover magically went away, the weather dude said that as the sun was covered and the temperature dropped, the clouds evaporate (or something like that). When the sun comes back, it warms up, and the clouds reappear.