gravitylover

^^It started with such promise...

Thanks @bluewave

^^What does it look like for Putnam and northwestern Fairfield counties?

3 hours of fuel system cleanup, one small fire and a stinky driveway and it's working I'm tired of rain and sogginess, can we turn if off now? 

Yay power is out 

Gotta love when the power goes out and you open the generator to put gas in and it's half full of milky goo

I'm just a hair over 73 a few minutes west of Danbury.

20 minutes ago, CPcantmeasuresnow said:

In Saratoga Springs headed to Plattsburgh or Lake placid? Give me some advice please Don. To late for Maine. 

It'll take you just as long to head northeast. I'd head for VT over P'burgh.

Damn.i don't want to get more heating oil but if it's not gonna warm up I'll have to. Uggh

Thanks Rob. We didn't have the greatest relationship and for the last year or so he wasn't texting much because he couldn't always remember how. I did go to see him pretty often, we'd sit and talk,maybe get a bite at his favorite diner but what does a sick 80 year old guy really want to do? Sit and be left alone. I was even further from my mom. That said, it's going to be an adjustment not having either of them to lean on when no one else wants to listen and other stuff... Hey, he went on his terms and that's what was important to him and now it doesn't hurt anymore.

Thanks everyone 

5 hours ago, Wxoutlooksblog said:

Looking at the maps tonight I'm not really seeing much of any change in the weather we've been having for the last 5 weeks over the next 2 weeks. In fact the latest model guidance gives one the feeling that a cool stormy pattern could last another 2-4 weeks as GEFS tends to feature some ridging out west. Looks like last year or maybe even a little worse.

WX/PT

Uggh. Can ya stir the tea leaves and try again?

Thanks, I appreciate it. 

I've been working on this simple plan for 20 years, the snow complicates it and makes the travel and viewing spot arrival time even more important.

There aren't too many N/S roads in VT, if the traffic is bad you'll be choosing a spot somewhere without snowbanks (along with everyone else). 

As the forecast homes in on the low cloud zones it's getting real. My plan got blown when my dad died this morning but go straight north and do it overnight so you get to your chosen plowed area by sunrise. The recent and current storm really reduced where you're going to be able to stop your cars and that's going to become the primary limiting factor. 

11 hours ago, MJO812 said:

I like cool and rainy

Go away

I had a much longer affect, 20 seconds easily starting with a bang then up and down with a lateral feel to it. Rattling windows and pictures on the outside walls. I was in the stone sunroom that sits on bedrock so it was probably amplified somewhat compared to a home on a slab over soil. The best part was the sound. It was like a huge helicopter directly overhead and it made my knees quiver. Cool shit. 

I'm 1500 miles away so all I have to go on is our cameras but it looks like about an inch on the ground. Pavement looks wet. 

I'm not home but our cameras show what looks like about an inch on the ground. 

7 hours ago, rygar said:

Hang in there, not easy

Eclipse wise is in max totality or bust for you?  Or are you fine with 2 min.   Asking because a midnight leave is difficult, you must be searching prime time real estate with near 4 minute totality

I'm hoping for 2+ without many people.  Tough to find day of, but going for it.

Thanks. It sux

This has been on my radar since I only got about 80% in the 1994 one. For the last 20 years I've been working on getting it right this time. 2 minutes might be alright but if I can I'd like to max it out. I don't mind the overnight trip, I do that for work a few times a month so it's not too far outside my routine. All I need is food, beer and a bathroom so if there's a supermarket parking lot inside the zone I'm good but I'd rather not have a bunch of people around talking dumb shit. There's a perfect parking lot a few minutes north of Paul Smiths college outside Saranac Lake that's one of my targets. 

Seems to me that the bottom line is you can't plan where you're going until the afternoon before. This isn't tracking a storm, it's looking for a clear(ish) sky and you can't predict that more than 12-24 hours out. I've been looking forward to this for 30 years and have run through a million scenarios and it keeps coming down to leaving home by midnight and heading for the choice spot to be there before most people and before local LEOs have closed stuff off. There are only 2 things that will change my plan and they're both revolving around our fathers whose health is rapidly fading, my dad is in hospice and my FIL could leave us at any time. 

Yeah the downslope areas of the 'Daks might be the clearest. @Superstorm I expect 87 to be terrible so if all goes according to plan I'll be off it by about sunrise. It might be nice to sit in the park on the lake in Plattsburgh. 

4 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Easier to get to for some of us.

 

If you're driving you can stop anywhere in the zone that you find a good place to park. 

3 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

If New York is truly going to be as clear as what I just saw in the forecasts (unlikely, it's still 10 days out), then this will be where a lot of people will be coming.

The forecast I just saw for Syracuse (the closest big town to New York City for totality) is 0% high clouds, 0% midlevel clouds and 1% low clouds at 2 PM, about an hour and a half before totality.

https://spotwx.com/products/grib_index.php?model=gfs_pgrb2_0p25_f&lat=43.04795&lon=-76.14745&tz=America/New_York&label=Syracuse, New York

Who cares if it's a big town or not? 

58 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

I suggested this analog a few days ago, this was another north of NYC snow event in a season when we saw very little snow.

That storm gave me more than triple what I'd gotten the entire winter. 

There are a couple of Mennonite bike shops on farms that I work with that I can hang out on for the day. I warned them that I might be there early in the morning already They're scattered all around so I have my bases covered for quiet spots. It might be fun watching the animals be confused when it gets dark during the day. 

I'm going to point it towards the clearest area within 8-10 hours. I'll leave here the night before and drive overnight so I get wherever by sunrise to avoid the worst traffic and find a place to park. As long as there's cold beer and a bathroom I'm good. 

7 hours ago, snowman19 said:

I don’t think it’s going to just be dry heat, not with the record soil moisture we have. It’s probably going to be humid as hell

IF we can go a few weeks while everything is leafing out with minimal rain and a fair bit of wind the top few feet will dry out nicely.