Total Solar Eclipse April 8, 2024 weather prospects

[JamesCaruso]

As was the case with the 2017 eclipse, my friends, family and coworker circles are largely disinterested in this one and most aren't planning to go see it (even though it is, once again, in our backyard here). So, like 2017, I think a morning-of reposition won't have any traffic issues to contend with.

On the morning of the eclipse in 2017, I drove from Boulder CO to near Torrington WY, and the traffic was pretty bad. I remember being really stressed out while sitting in traffic on a one lane road in WY. As it happened, I made it on time into the path of totality, but ran out of time to get to the centerline. I am more worried this time, given that the Dallas to Austin area is much more populated. I will reposition on the day before if the forecast is clear cut, Otherwise I will wait until the morning-of, and take my chances (but will leave plenty of extra time).

@Dan Robinson So great to see you back here again!

 

[Ben Holcomb]

I've secured myself some contact points near the path including a friend near Austin, my house in Norman, a hotel room in Western TN and Family/Friends in Michigan/Ohio that I should be able to nail down a point somewhere along the path of totality easily.

The real question becomes if there is a tornado threat. I already have the QuakeNado, I need an EclipseNado.

 

[adlyons]

I've secured myself some contact points near the path including a friend near Austin, my house in Norman, a hotel room in Western TN and Family/Friends in Michigan/Ohio that I should be able to nail down a point somewhere along the path of totality easily.

The real question becomes if there is a tornado threat. I already have the QuakeNado, I need an EclipseNado.

Ben! Good to see ya man! Eclipse nado/supercell would be an incredible feat. Im hopeful we at least see a midday lightning shot from someone in totality. I am unfortunately scheduled to teach a class that morning until 11:15 but I may drive down I-35 to get near totality in southeast OK if there's time.

 

[Dan Robinson]

On the morning of the eclipse in 2017, I drove from Boulder CO to near Torrington WY, and the traffic was pretty bad. I remember being really stressed out while sitting in traffic on a one lane road in WY.

Thanks James! Traffic here was non-existent before the eclipse, but there were a lot of big jams afterward from everyone leaving at the same time. Thankfully the county road grid here in Illinois is pretty good, and I was able to bypass the jams which were mostly on the main highways.

 

[Elaine Spencer]

Eclipse nado/supercell would be an incredible feat.

I went to see the 2017 eclipse in SW Illinois (Steeleville) and on the way back to Springfield, we did run into a thunderstorm that, to me, briefly looked like it was rotating, and thought how wild would it be to see a total solar eclipse AND a tornado on the same day...

I just realized a few days ago that I had almost totally forgotten about this event, due to preoccupation with other stuff.... the path of totality is within about a 2-3 hour drive from Springfield so we may just go down the morning of, or get a room for Sunday night outside the path but close enough to cut our drive time down to an hour or so.

Possibly silly "is it just me" question: does it seem like there's less public interest/excitement in this eclipse? Are people maybe distracted by economic concerns or the upcoming election or a general sense of crisis/malaise? I myself have had a hard time being as enthusiastic about this one as I did last time. Or is it the time of year, since it's not vacation season and the school year isn't over fewer people are making eclipse travel plans.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Eclipse nado/supercell would be an incredible feat.

Possibly silly "is it just me" question: does it seem like there's less public interest/excitement in this eclipse? Are people maybe distracted by economic concerns or the upcoming election or a general sense of crisis/malaise? I myself have had a hard time being as enthusiastic about this one as I did last time. Or is it the time of year, since it's not vacation season and the school year isn't over fewer people are making eclipse travel plans.

Since I'll be in S/C Texas for this, I am hopeful there is some degree of afternoon convective threat. A supercell following a total solar eclipse is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I haven't heard anything on mainstream news about the eclipse yet. I can't remember if the 2017 eclipse was widely advertised in the media either. Perhaps the 2017 did garner more attention because the path literally crossed the CONUS from Pacific to Atlantic Coast, whereas this one will only "cut across" the central part of the country, and thus won't be dubbed "The Great American Eclipse" like the 2017 one was.

If there turns out to be less public interest, then good. I do have worries about the crowds making the experience less enjoyable. I'm hopeful that the path of totality covering parts of San Antonio proper will keep most of the city from "evacuating" to the NW to see it, as I plan to do. I heard horror stories about people leaving the Denver area in for the 2017 eclipse and how bad some rural highways were up in Wyoming. I don't want to have to deal with that in Texas.

 

[Drew Terril]

Fortunately, I don't live far from the path of totality, so I won't have to go far. I suspect that there's going to be a lot of people out of Indy, Fort Wayne, Dayton, and Toledo converging on the path though. Places like Muncie, IN and Celina, OH are probably going to get crowded. It might be the proximity, but I have seen some talk about it in local media, primarily on the local radio stations. I've not seen anything about it on national level media though.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Possibly silly "is it just me" question: does it seem like there's less public interest/excitement in this eclipse? Are people maybe distracted by economic concerns or the upcoming election or a general sense of crisis/malaise? I myself have had a hard time being as enthusiastic about this one as I did last time. Or is it the time of year, since it's not vacation season and the school year isn't over fewer people are making eclipse travel plans.

I haven't heard anything on mainstream news about the eclipse yet. I can't remember if the 2017 eclipse was widely advertised in the media either. Perhaps the 2017 did garner more attention because the path literally crossed the CONUS from Pacific to Atlantic Coast, whereas this one will only "cut across" the central part of the country, and thus won't be dubbed "The Great American Eclipse" like the 2017 one was.

If there turns out to be less public interest, then good. I do have worries about the crowds making the experience less enjoyable. I'm hopeful that the path of totality covering parts of San Antonio proper will keep most of the city from "evacuating" to the NW to see it, as I plan to do. I heard horror stories about people leaving the Denver area in for the 2017 eclipse and how bad some rural highways were up in Wyoming. I don't want to have to deal with that in Texas.

I feel like there is less awareness / publicity this time, but it‘s hard to remember too much about last time. If there is in fact less mainstream publicity about it this time, I think you both offer good insights as to why that may be the case. Another reason could simply be that it’s only 7 years since the last one, whereas the 2017 eclipse was (I think) the first total solar eclipse in the US in many years, maybe even in my lifetime?

For what it’s worth, there was a prominent display of a “Great 2024 Eclipse” magazine at the grocery store, complete with eclipse glasses, and we are not even in the path here in southeast PA. I remember thinking, oh boy, here we go, now the crowds will be out in force. I looked for hotels in Little Rock Arkansas back in July, and they were already booked, so I got one in Arkadelphia AR and also a couple different spots in TX, where there was no shortage of availability at that time. I was worried about being so close to metro areas like Dallas and Austin, but to Jeff’s point maybe that keeps people in the cities, close to home, and not out on the rural roads like I experienced driving to Wyoming from Boulder on the morning of the 2017 eclipse. I got stuck in traffic and thought I would be too late to get in the path of totality. We made it, but not to the centerline. Although I probably should have just keep going - it wouldn’t have been a big deal to miss the earlier stages of the partial eclipse. But at the time, I wanted to be in place at the very start.

 

[Cody Taylor]

I feel like there is less awareness / publicity this time, but it‘s hard to remember too much about last time. If there is in fact less mainstream publicity about it this time, I think you both offer good insights as to why that may be the case. Another reason could simply be that it’s only 7 years since the last one, whereas the 2017 eclipse was (I think) the first total solar eclipse in the US in many years, maybe even in my lifetime?

For what it’s worth, there was a prominent display of a “Great 2024 Eclipse” magazine at the grocery store, complete with eclipse glasses, and we are not even in the path here in southeast PA. I remember thinking, oh boy, here we go, now the crowds will be out in force. I looked for hotels in Little Rock Arkansas back in July, and they were already booked, so I got one in Arkadelphia AR and also a couple different spots in TX, where there was no shortage of availability at that time. I was worried about being so close to metro areas like Dallas and Austin, but to Jeff’s point maybe that keeps people in the cities, close to home, and not out on the rural roads like I experienced driving to Wyoming from Boulder on the morning of the 2017 eclipse. I got stuck in traffic and thought I would be too late to get in the path of totality. We made it, but not to the centerline. Although I probably should have just keep going - it wouldn’t have been a big deal to miss the earlier stages of the partial eclipse. But at the time, I wanted to be in place at the very start.

Not sure how flexible you are, but i typically head out a few days early to avoid traffic scenarios like the one you described. Heading out a few days early also allows you to adjust the target area quite a bit in case of less than ideal weather. Also, i have converted the back of my 4runner into a sleeping area, so i can sleep basically anywhere and do not have to worry about hotels. Im sure you have considered all of this, however i just wanted to share a few of the things i do.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Not sure how flexible you are, but i typically head out a few days early to avoid traffic scenarios like the one you described. Heading out a few days early also allows you to adjust the target area quite a bit in case of less than ideal weather. Also, i have converted the back of my 4runner into a sleeping area, so i can sleep basically anywhere and do not have to worry about hotels. Im sure you have considered all of this, however i just wanted to share a few of the things i do.

Thanks. I am sort of doing that already. The problem with heading out too early is the increased uncertainty about cloud cover. Right now my plan is to land in Dallas on Saturday. Then on Sunday, make a decision whether to head north to my Arkadelphia hotel, south to my Austin hotel, or stay put in Dallas. If I decide to stay put in Dallas it will either be because the weather forecast is favorable enough there, OR because there is too much uncertainty to commit north or south - in which case I will re-evaluate Monday morning and will end up driving on the “day of” again. But at least the road networks in those areas should be less likely to bottleneck than in Wyoming.

As far as sleeping in my vehicle (which will be a rental), that’s not going to work for a family of 5!

 

[Elaine Spencer]

A couple of days ago I managed to book a reasonably priced hotel room for Sunday and Monday nights in a SW Illinois town about 30-40 miles outside the path of totality. Based on our experience from last time we should have no major traffic issues as long as we stick to back roads and avoid interstates. We can reach the path of totality in under an hour from the place we are staying and a 90 minute or 2 hour drive would get us on or near the centerline. Fingers crossed that the weather holds out....

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Bell County Texas (Temple/Belton along 35 between DFW and Austin) has declared a state of emergency for April 8th as they're expecting almost half a million extra people in their county during the eclipse.

Bell County is expecting the influx of eclipse viewers in the area to cause traffic congestion, shortages of food and fuel and cellular network congestion, according to the release.

MSN

 

[Peter MacDonald]

If I stay at home in London, Ontario, I'll see a 99.7% partial eclipse, but if I drive 20 minutes south I'll be in the path of totality. I think this is an easy call to make. The only problem is this is early April and that usually means cloud cover and rain in this region.

Fingers crossed we get a break of good weather.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Getting down to the final planning stage. Preparing to book a hotel room in Shreveport, Louisiana on the 7th and 8th for our southern alternate location in northeast Texas. Between that hotel and home, we should be covered for most of the Texas-Arkansas-Missouri sections. We have multiple family lodging options in the less-likely northeast contingency scenarios from Indiana through Ohio. As with last time, we will be packing enough food for a worst-case scenario of apocalyptic traffic jams, but based on 2017, I don't expect those to be much of an issue. While none of our lodging spots are in the actual path of totality, in most any scenario, we'll have less than a 5 hour drive to get to them from any point on the centerline, prepared for that time to double or triple in worst-case traffic. There's not much more to do now until we get to within range of reliable cloud forecasts (a few days prior).

Looking around at hotel bookings, there are still quite a few rooms available in the totality path for the 7th and 8th. The low-end hotels (Motel 6 and Super 8 for example) appear to not be raising rates, while the better hotels are double or triple the usual rates.

Just outside of the path, the options are plentiful with rates appearing pretty much normal. That seems to be the way to go if you're looking for alternate locations. Based on 2017, getting from just outside the path to the centerline in the morning should be easily doable in most areas that have plenty of roads. I would only be worried about river crossings and other barriers that will bottleneck everyone onto less than 3 road options.

 

[Dan Robinson]

One of the things I've been doing lately is occasional mental exercises of what the plan would be if today's cloud configuration per visible satellite is what we'd have on eclipse day. Today's would be pretty bad! (Time sensitive, 3PM CDT Thursday): COD NEXLAB: Satellite and Radar

The only option in that scenario is New York. I'm not sure if it would even be possible to get up there from here due to the traffic. That's a situation not seen with 2017, having the entire eclipse path clouded except for in one border state.

I'm beginning to realize that we need to mentally prepare ourselves for the possibility of missing this altogether due to clouds. I guess a clouded totality will be better than nothing.