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It looks like the ZR product on the COD site is messed up. I'm thinking it's scaled too high by a factor of 10.

Euro is really rockin' the cold air next weekend. There is a 40F temperature swing from Thursday afternoon to Friday morning.

I don't know...looks pretty good to me

EPS and GEFS ensembles continue to show a pattern change in the days leading up to Christmas.

12Z EPS control run has nearly the same storm as the GFS. And the GEFS and EPS pattern evolution hints at something brewing in the days leading up to Christmas. So, who knows, maybe we're seeing a bit more skill than usual of modeling with an active pattern in the works. Or modeling could just be teasing us again.

The best way I heard it explained is that the sun is 400,000x brighter than the full moon. So even at 99% it is still 4000x brighter! And yes. I too thought the light dropped off rapidly at the last 60s. I couldn't really perceive the shadow racing at me, but it went dark pretty quick. So what do you guys think? How bright would you say the corona was? I was thinking it was about 1 or 2 full moons. It was brighter than what I was expecting. And really vivid.

I just want to reiterate how neat the experience was. Those who weren't in totality had an overwhelmingly "meh" response. But, those in totality always responded with "wow, that was so worth it" or "I'm already planning to do it again in 2024". This is something everyone should experience at least once in their lifetime.

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.

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.

12Z GEFS continues to trend slightly stronger and further northeast with upper and mid level ridge. I do wish it would slide further to the northeast though. For the St. Louis region I do have a concern with a possible MCS in NB having its cloud debris blown into MO by upper level winds, but if we could get that upper level anticyclone to move further north and east winds would blow more to the east instead of southeast nevermind that it would keep any shortwaves rippling through the flow further away to begin with.

FWIW the Euro looks better for MO. It has clear skies in the morning giving way to cumulus clouds in the afternoon. Research shows that the reduced solar radiation at the surface can slightly suppress convectively forced cumulus clouds (see here) so maybe that'll help this time too, I don't know. Regardless, be flexible. Right now official forecasts are more favorable the further southeast along the path you go so consider a drive more toward St. Louis if necessary. Keep in mind that traffic could be a problem especially along major interstates and near the St. Louis metro area.

Nebraska through Tennessee. South Carolina had higher cloud coverage.

12Z Euro has clear skies in the morning and then broad CU coverage in response to the unstable environment. Much of the eclipse path is under some pretty decent ridging so hopefully this trend continues.

I wish I could post it, but the 12Z Euro cloud cover products look favorable for most of the path except maybe closer to the East Coast. The EPS ensemble is favorable as well at least in regard to precipitation. It does show elevated rain chances along the East Coast portion of the eclipse.

I was wondering the same thing about NWP models. Do they model the loss of solar irradiance? I'm assuming they don't but I'm prepared to be wrong if someone knows for sure that they do. And yes, I read that a 5-15F drop is common. The temperature lags the irradiance by 15-30 minutes so the maximum effect will happen after totality.