baltosquid

Still can see the sun thru the clouds with the eclipse glasses in Rochester, I think pulling off a veiled but still visible totality is possible! HRRR is trending better it seems. Will probs miss out on the corona though.

King Euro, go and get your crown and make this happen… seems like the best I can realistically hope for if fully clear is off the table.

I will hear no slander against the NAM today Edit: #TeamMeso

18z ticked the middle clouds further SW, low clouds still not a factor... just super aggressive with the high clouds, despite being a bit drier at 18z. I'm fully onboard the "GFS overdoes clouds, especially thin high ones" hopium train at this point... Here's the GEFS cloud thickness, if it was just the 18z and not time lagged it would probably be a few points higher in most places. Worse for WNY but not as much as the op verbatim clouds would suggest. Hopefully that projected thinness comes through.

psst... get excited... 06z tomorrow, NAM range!

Opposite sentiment... Canadian is by far the most aggressive with the precip moving NE right now

Yeah there’s definitely some confusing differences between the NBM and tomer’s blend of clouds/shortwave depending on the model. I think NBM is just using clouds? Which could be overdone compared to shortwave. Rochester has the same but smaller conundrum, 70% favorable, 18% somewhat, 12% unfavorable but 51% cloudy on NBM. I think the trends should bring that NBM down though! Combo of faster movement through Texas and quicker dissipation as things move north east could see both ends of the eclipse path luck out.

The omega block:

06z GFS continues idea of having the low dissipate before it can traverse the lakes fully which reduces the eastern extent of the cloud cover - using the basic, overdone GFS cloud product. It seems like the bleeding may have stopped for the northeast but for my chosen WNY spot, it has still gone from looking like an 80% or more chance of getting a viewing window to closer to a coin flip. Hopefully there’s a bit of a countertrend today…

I think a positive is it got much weaker. For this run, that unfortunately does not help Ohio much. It does improve things further NE and verbatim there’s just a spike of partial high clouds over WNY and then clear rest of the way. Maybe it can trend weaker over the next couple runs and more south and the cloud/rain line can retreat from the Lake Erie/Ontario coastlines.

At this point I just hope maybe the trend to squash the whole thing latitudinally might make the clouds a north south dividing line rather than an east west one; I am at this point ready to accept (seethe at) my being screwed in the current longitudinal fiasco and hope maybe to find myself in a better spot if it becomes a latitudinal deal.

ECMWF took a step in the wrong direction for the northeast.

EPS 06z still seems unconvinced by the extreme eastward camp, a touch NW for the low 13 hours before game time. Clustered well around the middle of the Dakotas, nothing east of the Mississippi per lows shown on TT. Hoping the GEFS and GEPS drop their eastern extreme members and cave…

Alright the models need to quit it with that low barging into the lakes or we’re going to have trouble

2024 Eclipse Forecasts (ou.edu) If you go to "Ensemble Forecasts" here, GEFS and EPS have the Downward Shortwave (solar was my mistake) Radiation plots. The GEFS has it because its cloud plot is extremely overdone, and the EPS has it because it does not have a dedicated cloud product otherwise. Tomer Burg goes into how and why he did it here in this thread: https://x.com/burgwx/status/1774231279523021285?s=20

Latest GEFS seems to set up the nailbiter - lots of variance on how the northern low sets up if you look at the member MSLP chart. Just hoping it can't nudge into the ridge so much and set up on the lakes as one camp of members suggests...

Use the downward solar radiation plot for the GEFS/GFS - it's available on Tomer's site! Tomer Burg uses that to address the GFS and its ensembles having a huge cloud bias. Just compare the GFS and CMC 24 hours out on pivotal on the cloud map, or the GEFS vs GEPS... GFS/GEFS is crazy. Now, for Texas right now that's little comfort as it does not improve the picture much. But much of the path fares better.

Slight concern though... I hope the high doesn't trend too far north and let something sneak underneath into the lakes region... that's what I'd be most afraid of.

Not ready to put any faith in cloud maps. Willing to use precip as a bit of a proxy for "is it even worth getting hopes up" though...

Ridge placement looks improved for the northeast through the 00z ensembles and 06z GEFS. Gotta keep rooting for that low up in Canada to walk back westwards, let that high be totally unmolested! Some PWAT negative anomalies really starting to creep in towards Buffalo now as well, as that shift west moves the moisture train from the gulf farther away.

I'm thinking as the solution is zeroed in on, we'll stop seeing the widespread precipitation as the multitude of solutions that are distributed across the members (slower, four corners? slightly faster, affecting Texas? much faster, ejected to the east?) settles into just one. I'm not really concerned with ops, or ensemble precip maps so much, since they show a lot of signatures of individual members... I think looking at the 500mb, you just have to take that big ridge in the east and feel reasonably good about the chances for anyone at or east of the great lakes portion of the track.

Rochester for me!

Cautiously optimistic about WNY with the ridging starting to show up on the ensembles, getting inside 300 and got all 3 votes from EPS, GEFS and GEPS.

From NEPA: Most Emergency Relief projects and emergency repairs qualify as a categorical exclusion under 23 CFR 771.117(c)(9), which includes the repair, reconstruction, restoration, retrofitting, or replacement of eligible facilities if the work 1) occurs within the existing right-of-way; 2) conforms to the pre-existing design, function, and location as the original; and 3) is commenced within two years of the date of disaster. Basically, they can avoid a lot of environmental red tape if they largely rebuild the old design, but I think we'd all hope there's leeway to make the supports stronger and then add barriers. I don't think this exception would work if it was going to be a new type of bridge altogether.

On weather - any tips on what long range patterns to look for that might suggest cloudier/clearer (as light a suggestion as that may be at range)? If it’s going to end up cloudy, I’d like to be able to comfort myself by setting expectations early lol.