Hoosier

^ To add to that, do not rely on technology like the internet and GPS to get to your viewing location. You never know if systems may be become overloaded. I will be bringing a paper map with the totality duration lines overlaid.

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.

You're due!

Can't say it's been a quiet start, overall. If you just look at tornado reports, there aren't many years outdoing this one so far.

Man that's brutal!

Wikipedia has a nice summary and listing of tornadoes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_outbreak_of_March_2–3,_2012

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?

Even if Joaquin would've made landfall in, say, the Carolinas as many models had been suggesting at one point or another, how unusual would that have been? Northwestward moving storms into the Gulf coast/Southeast seem pretty routine.

great pic!

I can tell you all about it...we specialize in 80 degree dews in the LAF. Plainfield is a good reminder that you still need to keep an eye out on days that may not look like much tornadic wise at first glance.

bump...here's another version of the Peoria sounding from the Plainfield tornado day. Sick, sick stuff.

Yeah, if we're thinking about the same video, it's kinda cool how the tree waited to go down until right after the strongest winds passed. lol The cool thing about stuff like this now is that everybody gets it on camera.

I've wondered what it would've been like if areas closer to the surface low had been able to destabilize. I remember someone posting a model image the night before that had good CAPE all the way into northern Indiana with a string of supercells running pretty much the entire length of the state.

June 15-17 was a big severe weather event. The 16th/17th were high risk days for much of the subforum except the fringe areas in the north, east, and south.

Here is the NARR from the mornings of June 21 and June 22. Pretty amazing to see 850 mb temps below 0C in the Lakes.

Come on, even you would be whining about 30s in late June.

I was pretty young but I have some vague memories of that summer. Looking back at the dailies, LAF had a low of 35 degrees on June 22, which really sticks out like a sore thumb when you look at records for surrounding dates.

I don't spend a lot of time in this forum but it's been my understanding that it's mostly been used for climate change discussions on the larger scale. So, inevitably there is the issue about where to post about climate changes/trends for any given city or more localized regions. Personally I don't have a problem with those types of posts in the subforums as long as it stays on a basic level without getting too deep into the reasons for changes. Numbers are not debatable, reasons behind the numbers are.

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