winterymix

Dream conditions would be cold front passage with a drop of dew points. Instead, this is semi-tropical humid soup. Hopefully pop up showers and thick clouds will shift north along the edge of that ridge which wants to trundle north (slowly). Wouldn't know for sure until 24 hours before the event. Wishing clear skies to all the eclipse chasers.

Knowing too little about cloud forecasteses, I'ma just going post the 700 mb sref for the AM hours before totality... Most of the US has a moist juicy column of summer humidity except the Oregan rain shadow desert and the Idaho-Wyoming-Nebraska fly over landscape. I'm hoping MO has sunny skies from noon to 2 pm somewhere on the CL The trend was to increase clouds in MO from 20/30% to more like 40%...fOOK. Fingernail chewing commence!

Then Missouri-Tenn. corridor looks....hot and 30% clouds. Am more concerned with cirrus than mid level clouds. Cumulus and mid-level can dissipate between 1st and 2nd contact. Those smarti-pants in east Oregon may have 80s and sun....

Traveling with another 60+ yr old colleague.. We need T shirts that say short Jew nerds . com I will mention it to him. But Gallitin is 340+ miles from St. Louis. Should have opted for East Oregon/Idaho. Our plan is to stay at a Hilton on west side of St. Louis and take rental vehicle to centerline that seems to have best skies within two to three hour drive of west St. Louis. Should you want to change your flight to STL, we already have a vehicle and hotel.

Fair point. This is my fourth total. The new Nikons can be set with a built in intervalometer and built in exposure bracketing. I can get nine exposures bracketed with a range of shutter speeds after one command to the camera. So I can get correctly set exposures and still view with the naked eye. The Nikon D7500 can capture exposures almost good enough for National Geographic. Jerry, this is a must-read: Sperling's Eight Second Law - All Total Solar Eclipses Last Eight Seconds

People are hush, hush about where they are observing/chasing. I'm bringing four Nikon dslrs, three or four tripods, a little folding table and some binoculars. Can't anyone observing near the CL in MO share some location observing tips?

I'm fantasizing about displaying a thermometer at two meters and with some sort of sun shade. It would be interesting to record 2m temperatures during the event. I 'm reading that with favorable conditions, the 2m temp. can drop 15 to 20 degrees. I'm guessing dry soil, no clouds, no pollution, no wind shear will allow quick transfer of outgoing radiation starting about 40 minutes before second contact. I'm sure these stats will be gathered across the centerline and near center. Hopefully a lot of good temp logs will emerge. Can any-of-ya suggest a reasonably priced air thermometer I can buy before Friday, not the POC in Home Depot. Any tricks on a legit way to provide sunshade? Will the temps count if I do not have motorized ventilation? Thanks to the red taggers, keep those probabilistic forecast products coming.

Where? I'm looking at MU Extension in Howard County.

Jerry, I'm guessing the GFS 700 mb (rel humidity, omega, heights, winds) chart gives us a rough idea of cloud cover. For eclipse time, it seems that the Ozarks (MO/TN) area is under an area of stationary flow/August scattered showers. My hunch is "partly cloudy with 30% chance of showers". I'm guessing that verification is poor at 7-8 days but still the rough ideas are there. What do you think?

If we each put aside $175 a month for 23 months...

Jerry, see you on July 2, 2019 — Total Solar Eclipse — La Serena, Chile

nice link http://www.weather.gov/media/lmk/pdf/eclipse/eclipse_long_lead_DSS_LMK.pdf

What is the verification score for a 200+ hour GFS cloud cover forecast? Flame proof anti trolling shield **on**

I'm going to push the definition in this thread. For me, the best storm was February 14-17,1958. I was four years old and was in my Dad's car. He had to pull over and bail a few blocks from home because of the road conditions. I remember him having to carry me home. That got me interested in snow. BTW, a city plow smacked his car and the city had to pay to fix the body work.

May 2013 at DCA is finalized at 66.7 degrees, the 45th warmest of all-time, vs last year's 71.4 degrees, the 3rd warmest. This year's meteorological spring (March, April, and May) at DCA is finalized at 56.5 degrees, the 43rd warmest. That compares with last year's record-breaking spring average of 62.2 degrees. The 5.7 degree decline from one spring to the next is the second greatest in DC history, topped only by the 5.8 degree decline between 1991's 60.0 degrees and 1992's 54.2 degrees. Portions of this May had a brisk feel on some days, some folks would say those days felt harsh. Some folks out for a stroll had winter clothes on. Nor meant to be a scientific comment, personally, I found those cool days to be refreshing. RodneyS.: These temperature swings you are documenting can be random noise or can be a signal of increased volatility. Too soon to say.

We're having a drought of precip. Since Sandy, we are about 3 inches in the hole. January looks increasingly warm and dry. The dreaded Pacific zonal firehose.

Wouldn't it be special if either BWI, DCA, or LWX set a record for the earliest 100 degree record in modern times this year? DCA and BWI, June 05, 1925.

JoMo: You mentioned that your Ex had injuries and perhaps e-coli. I hope she isn't dealing with this horrific fungal outbreak. Good luck will all the challenges around you.

This dude Jeff was living on the bleeding edge of peril. I can't imagine any chaser getting closer.

Absolutely. For the 1100 +/- people injured or perished it was little more than innocently being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is horribly quick and nearly random catastrophe.

Kindly take a look at that left-side menu in google maps.

I just took another look at the Springfield WSO site. They have the obvious link to the survey for the tornado. If one looks off to the side, there is a menu item to "view a larger map". If one opens that up and further enlarges the image, it becomes quite obvious that the authors wanted to depict a large and significant continuous zone of F-5 forces. This is a rare and extreme catastrophe in the center of a small to mid-side city. Josh, if you look at the side menu for google maps, you will note that kilometers 4 through 7 all experienced winds > 200 moh. I know you want more exact wind speeds but it is up to the WSO to release that info.

Hey JOMO: I'm glad you made it through the maelstrom. Regarding the second guessing, here is my question: It seems the Doppler Radar, warning system and sirens are reasonable; not perfect but far better than what we had 20 years ago. So...should there be underground shelters every couple of streets? It seems that some of the people had nowhere to go. Heck, you had only a closet!!! For the people in the most intense F5 zone, would an underground shelter with a six inch concrete slab or heavy steel storm door (covering an underground room) have saved them? What good does it do to give people a 20 minute warning if they have no basement in their home and no community storm shelter within a short walking distance?