bdgwx

We setup near the Perryville Municipal Airport on the MO side of the Mississippi River. I knew CU suppression was a very real effect, but I had no idea how effective it would actually be. We went from solid coverage at 12:40p to very sparse coverage at 13:10p and then just wispy remnants at 13:20p. In probably the most frustrating and unlikely coincidence ever we had exactly 1.5 minutes of cloud obstruction and it just happen to be from a lone dying rouge cloud that moved right in front literally seconds before totality started. Fortunately we had 2:40 of totality so we got a solid 60s of an unobstructed view of the corona. And wow...that was awesome. Pictures and videos don't even come close to doing justice to the experience. I'm all in for 2024.

We are in Chester IL. The town is active but the sky is clear.

One thing to watch for in southeast MO and southern IL is moisture convergence initiating storms. The GFS, HRRR, and to a lesser extent the Euro show this. We are still targeting southeast of St. Louis and will probably head down I-55 and possibly cross the Mississippi at Chester, IL. Morning rush hour traffic on I-55 is north towards downtown STL...obviously so I'm hoping I-55 southbound will be clear. I-270 southbound is sometimes slow in the mornings, but it usually flows pretty well too.

The convection allowing model runs last night showed a lot of promise especially the closer you get to St. Louis.

I'm tentatively planning on heading that direction as well. I'll make a final decision tomorrow morning though after looking at the satellite. Several of this evening's convection allowing model runs have been favorable even for a large portion of the MO path.

All things considered the GEFS ensemble mean doesn't look bad unless your target is Nebraska. I'm tentatively planning on heading south and east of St. Louis tomorrow morning. Based on the last several GEFS runs, HRRR, Euro, etc. I think the odds of finding clear sky increase as you get closer to KY and TN.

Probably a good idea. I think they're good for general trends and broad brush guesses, but at least with the GFS I think they look worse than they actually are. I don't track the cloud products from the RAP/HRRR (or any model for that matter) enough to really know how well they perform.

That's the incoming shortwave radiation. Nebraska is covered with clouds...at least on the experimental RAP. The southeast side of I-44 looks decent.

It's pretty obvious the experimental RAP has the eclipse modeled. It's my understanding that the 0Z run of experimental HRRR will run out to 48 hours this evening.

https://esrl.noaa.gov/gsd/eclipse2017/

Yes, the black oval is the position of the shadow. Keep in mind that the GFS cloud products look worse than they actually are. As an exercise take a look at GOES-16 imagery tomorrow and compare it to what these cloud charts are showing and you'll see what I mean.

I read that those interactive eclipse maps may be overestimating the size of the shadow by 100-1000 meters. The problem is that many scientists think the uun is actually slightly larger than the officially accepted value. One goal of the eclipse is to better narrow down the size of the sun. So the word of caution is that if you think you're just barely within the path you really might not be.

I'm still not sure where I'm going. Assuming clouds aren't an issue I will obviously stick close to St. Louis...just not sure if it will be north or south of the Missouri River yet. The St. Clair area is one I've considered. I'd be willing bet to most natives will either go west on I-44 or south on I-55. Interestingly, nearly the entire length of the I-70 corridor will be in the path. MoDOT has been advertising the eclipse on the dymaic message boards throughout the state, but you know there'll be truckers and other people who are completely oblivious to what's happening. I'm planning on avoiding organized gatherings as well. But, setting up in a random parking lot and taking it in with the rest of those there is fine if that's how it works out.

Absolutely. This is will likely be the most studied eclipse ever. I'm kind of curious what GOES-16 will show. Will we be able to make out the umbra shadow? Also, modeling is showing a pretty unstable airmass for much of the path so it'll be interesting to see what effect it has on cloud patterns and obviously the temperature too. One obscure research topic is the "eclipse bow wave" which is a form of gravity wave that lags the shadow by 15-30 minute and ripples out at several hundred mph. Will we be able to see these with GOES-16?

Here's the AFD from LSX this afternoon. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Saint Louis MO 336 PM CDT Tue Aug 15 2017 [snip] .DISCUSSION FOR TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE... (Monday August 21st) The trend over the past 24 hours in medium-range NWP guidance is for the mid/upper level ridge across the southern CONUS to continue to build a bit northward through the day on Monday. This is a good trend for prospective viewers of the total solar eclipse passing through early Monday afternoon. Have lowered PoPs and sky cover a bit from yesterday`s forecast as the better chance of thunderstorms will be tied to the northern periphery of the ridge across the mid- Missouri Valley eastward toward the lower Great Lakes. However, some opaque cirrus blowoff from these storms to the north may be possible. In addition, there are numerous other mechanisms for the formation of clouds, many of which are very difficult to discern past 36-48 hours. That being said, current synoptic pattern forecast for Monday afternoon does look supportive of a partly cloudy to mostly sunny sky, with the most likely types of potential clouds being the aforementioned high-level cirrus blowoff from thunderstorms to the north/northwest of the area as well as diurnal cumulus. However, past total solar eclipses have noted that the cooling induced by the eclipse itself helps to reduce diurnal cumulus. Speaking of cooling, it certainly will be interesting to see exactly how much air temperatures are affected from the beginning to end of the eclipse. Attempted to add some detail in hourly temperatures by cooling readings several degrees nearest to totality (1800 UTC/100 PM) and 1-3 degrees in the hour immediately before and after during the partial phase of the eclipse. Actual temperatures nearest totality between ~1810 and ~1820 UTC will likely dip 5-15 degrees more, at least briefly.