weathafella

Kind of shocked to walk out of my house at 11am en route to Worcester having car thermometer reading 71-75 all the way and it felt it.

Beautiful morning.  Mentally preparing for Labradorean ass vomit….

Full on summer always waits till June.   We get a few tastes which increase in frequency as we go forward.   I’ll use ac if we get a few consecutive warm days (80+) given how warm it gets in the bedrooms.   

Brookline/Brighton areas are lovely today.  Shirtsleeve weather.

Clouds but dry today and temperatures were ok.  Walking from Coolidge Corner to the North End for Mother’s Day dinner took us through spectacular foliage-a beautiful time of year for Back Bay, the Public Garden, the Common, and Faneuil Hall into the north end of Boston as dogwoods,magnolias, cherry blossoms explode.   You guys wanting nonstop winter are the minority even amid snow weenies.

1 hour ago, kdxken said:

Looks like three more days topping out in the '50s oh joy. When does this cold snap end? Boston solidly below normal for the month.

Only close to the shore.  Most of us are above normal through 5/8 with BOS below while ORH, BDL are solidly above.   PVD is -0.7.  Also, weren’t you mild Monday and Tuesday?  Like +5-10 for maximum temps?  

4 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Getting to the time of the month where summer preps are almost done, pools begin to open. Let's get thru this week and then start the party. Still not planted quite yet but hopefully things look good last two weeks of May.

I was just telling my wife that I think we revert to summer mode beginning next week.   We’re on the edge and hallelujah!

Yeah it’s nicer than I thought it would be.

Gotta get a different picture-no one wears ties anymore.

Next week actually looks very nice.   

3 hours ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Is anybody making plans for August 2026 in Iceland?

I want to take my kid so I started looking into it last night. It can still be done reasonably but I’m sure prices are going to soar.

Spain.  I think Iceland has a much higher cloud possibility.

54 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Great stories.  I am pretty amazed more people didn't take a vacation day Mon and stay up there until the traffic died. I would absolutely die in 11 hr traffic. 

Yeah it would have been an obvious solution but so many of us planned NNE for the eclipse on relatively short notice.  I checked a week out and there was stuff available but in southern NH and not closer.  To complicate things the well meaning small towns had no experience or enough people to manage the flow out of town-added 2 hours to our trip.  Finally, NH DOT didn’t seem to give a shit.  Hindsight is always better I guess.  When we drove around the barrier vehicle's on exit 38 we encountered another problem-one 24 hour gas station (thankfully we didn’t need gas then) fully automated with no way to get into the bathrooms.   I went behind it and peed in an absolute emergency.  No place for my wife .  We ended up pulling off 93 after we got back on after the lane closures and stopped traffic and the place was mobbed-at 2:15AM.   What I noticed at the place was how nice everyone there was to each other.  Maybe there’s hope for the future….

We ended up driving around the car blocking exit 38 and took the alternate route anyway.   We weren’t alone either.  When 112 hit 93 we had clear sailing all the way home   We were in that cluster described above on 93 South for 3 hours and arrived home at 4AM.  Exit 39 was legit blocked.  Exit 38 seemed an ad hoc decision and we took the chance and at least got home before dawn.

50 minutes ago, wxsniss said:

Some comparisons to 2017 observed in Gallatin Tennessee:

- seemed larger to me, not sure if the moon was closer to us this time

- much more noticeable temp drop in 10 minutes before, I'm estimating 62F to 50F with noticeable breeze

- red solar prominence at 7 o'clock, so cool that everyone saw that

- "shadow snakes" on snow piles, only happened minutes before and after totality

For better or worse, did not even try to photo the eclipse... wanted no distractions from taking it all in during totality so only a set-it-and-forget-it video.

That's me pointing up in the center:

 

Photo from my brother who flew to Cleveland:

We may have been feet from each other!   I took few pictures since I felt all the stress of that in 2017 was a distraction.  Besides, my wife took videos and she laments the distraction…lol.  But she also acknowledges that unless you’ve seen totality you haven’t had the eclipse experience.  She downplayed everything and just went along and now realizes it’s an incredible and rare experience.  You did better getting out of Newport!  It took us longer.

Incredible day!   Newport was perfect for the show.  Unobstructed view including just spectacular beads as the sun re-emerged.  I echo Ryan’s observation-this one was better than 2017 in my view.

It took 90 minutes to get out of Newport-then 9.5 hours thanks in part to something crazy on 93 S near Franconia.   Still worth the sacrifice.  I can’t imagine I’ll be here for 2044 but there’s one in Spain 2026 and Australia 2028 I’ve got my eye on.

Looks like we’re going to be fine in Newport 

My friend is in Evansville IND and reports wispy clouds not obscuring the sun.

93 looks fine in both directions a few miles north of the 89 split at least from my window here.  Heading up 93 to 91 per Waze with 2 hours and 20 minutes.  Plenty of time-should be hitting the road in an hour.  Skies should not obscure the show!

1 minute ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

You'll be fine, it's the drive back that will be a little more crowded. 

I don’t think it will be as bad as people think.  At least that was my experience in 2017 and today’s drive up had normal flow-late afternoon.

4 hours ago, apm said:

Doing the same as you, Jerry. (But leaving Cambridge at 5:30) Can you text me? I couldn't message you for some reason.

I just cleared out a ton of messages going back 11 years.  Try now.  I don’t have your phone number.  We’re at the 89/93 split for the night and leaving around 9am.  Even triple the normal time gets us to Newport in the nick of time.

12 minutes ago, wxsniss said:

Same exact plan

Agree I think cloud cover will be a thin veil at most + we'll be far enough east that Newport vs. Colebrook should work. Defaulting to Newport given the extra seconds of totality.

I'm so nervous just about getting there leaving Boston at 8am.

Still can't believe New England may have one of the the best patches of viewing on the planet...

I'll PM you my cell #

I think we have each other’s?  I’ll text to test.

Based on everything still thinking Newport with the idea of cutting over towards Colebrook if clouds interfere.  Honestly I’m not at all worried about a few wisps of cirrus.  Mesos look good so far.

12 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

The post eclipse horror stories will be epic.

The thing to do is hit the road as soon as totality ends or wait hours and have a leisurely dinner and consider staying another night somewhere.  Plenty of availability Monday night.

7 minutes ago, wxsniss said:

Yeah the at-worst plan is pull over on I-91 breakdown lane, sit on grass. I'm nervous even that option won't be possible if the breakdown lane is already a parking lot.

But hopefully 7 hours drive from Boston is enough to reach Newport and stage someplace more reasonable.

So happy you're doing New England instead of Eagle Pass! Unbelievable that NNE will be the best viewing in the country. A month ago I was bracing myself for a washout.

18z NAM as you wrote above looks great...

 

 

Eagle Pass is a shit show with the border issues so that part was easy.  But yeah this seems way easier logistically and obviously less costly.  

4 minutes ago, wxsniss said:

Am I being totally ridiculous thinking at absolute worst you could just pull over on I-91 (or whatever road you're on)? My thinking is just get to the destination in time (and I'm increasingly nervous of that leaving Boston 8am) and the rest is gravy...

I too remember the drive back to airport from Gallatin was surprisingly OK.

The thing about pulling over is you pretty much have to get out of your car.  I think if you can reach a rest area or any exit 30 minutes ahead of totality it can work.  Pulling over on 91 is a bit dicey especially with idiots who don’t pull over and look at and take pictures of the eclipse while driving 80 mph.