Hoosier

Question for dtk or someone else with intimate knowledge of the models. Does NWP make any attempt to account for the loss of incoming sunlight during an eclipse and thus, the temperature decrease that commences shortly before totality? I know that it's pretty common to have temperature drops on the order of 5-15 degrees depending on time of day and other factors.

The maximum duration of totality in the 2024 eclipse is just under 4 1/2 minutes, in Mexico. Areas near the center line in the US will have totality lasting over 3 minutes to, in some cases, just over 4 minutes.

I'll admit the traffic has me concerned. It's the big question as we've never had something like this in the US in modern times with so much of the population being within driving distance of totality. Originally, I got my room near STL just in case the weather was looking bad in the MO/KY/IL area and I'd have to drive out to Kansas/Nebraska on the morning of the 21st, but I'm wondering if I should just head down the day before no matter what. With normal traffic, I could leave my house and get into the eastern MO/IL/western KY portion in about 5-6 hours, but it won't be normal.

Did you look for a hotel outside the path of totality? I was able to get one for a reasonable/normal rate about a mile outside the zone (near St. Louis). Like you said, a lot of stuff in the path is a higher price/already booked.

Man that's brutal!

Sorry folks. There was stuff being posted all over the board.

Couple images from SPC from that day. I do remember the focus/target area that day being pretty broad. Then attention quickly shifted toward Joplin.

Can't imagine being so close to total devastation as you were. You were in the outer fringes of the tornado IIRC?

What happened in that event? Was it a case of completely missing the lake effect potential or just being off with the placement of the band?

great pic!

beavis, I found a wind chill of -58F for ORD on 12/24/1983. Temp was -25F with wind of 25 mph

February 1936 might also be worth checking. It was ridiculously cold especially in the northern Plains/upper Midwest.

Thanks for the info. Where did you find it?

There was easily a 40-50 mb pressure gradient with that storm, so it must've been pretty windy. I was working on a blizzard project a while back but gave it up due to the workload...anyway one of the storms I was working on was 1/12/1918. Here is the approximate track and strength at various points. Numbers could be a bit off since I converted from inches to mb but should be pretty close.

Related to this...here is a study about the frequency of various wind chill readings in the northern US. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crh/ssd/pdf/tsp_15.pdf Too bad they didn't do a map for wind chills of -50 or -60.

I don't know where to get hourly data from back then.

Muncie might've been lower that day...winds were stronger but there's no temperature data so I can't say for sure.

Wish we had wind chill info for 1/12/1918. Basically it was a weaker version of the 1978 Cleveland bomb but it brought in bitter cold air behind it. Some of the numbers must've been pretty low.

-53F at IND on 1/20/1985 (temp -22, sustained wind 23 mph) but I've only checked a couple of the notorious cold dates so far.

I think that one had a very limited area of EF4 damage. I want to say only one structure but not sure.

Hard to believe it will be 1 year. I think we knew that it was serious based on the initial reports but I never imagined it would be as bad as it was.

Not that my opinion matters as much as Dr. Forbes' but I agree with that assessment. Tri-State is in a class by itself and then there are some interchangeable ones farther down the list. I think one could actually make a case that Joplin is #2 but it comes down to how heavily one weights the number of fatalities in years past. Given relatively similar damages when adjusted for inflation, are the 255 St Louis deaths of 1896 more impressive than the ~160 Joplin deaths?

Went back and looked at some stuff and came across the 00z SGF sounding. Pretty impressive

Yeah you just beat me to it

I guess you can never fully anticipate an EF5 making a direct hit on a heavily populated area but I think we knew the tornado risk was nonzero even though most of the attention wasn't on that area. I think SPC had a 5% chance there but I'd have to double check that. It was a very bad sign when they were already reporting like 25 deaths right after it happened.