ariof

I'm sort of wondering about your strategy, but it sounds like you probably didn't hit the road until 1700 or so. From Eustis at least I wonder if the optimal route would have been to get to Kingfield and then take 142 down to 156. There are enough branching roads south of there that it may have been possible to do so. The whole idea here was to avoid converging roadways (especially if you were on the secondary road in a merge) and seek out branches, and where possible think about three steps ahead of the average driver (one step ahead = taking the parallel road to the interstate, two steps ahead is a different route, three steps ahead is a parallel road to a different route). Get beyond what can be solved algorithmically, use intuition. Google is not smart enough to predict where there will be backups 30 minutes after totality ends. Try to figure that out, and go elsewhere!

Caught the eclipse in Monson, Maine after deciding the longer drive (without traffic) would be better with fewer clouds (none) and probably less traffic. Especially once we saw Franconia backed up before dawn. Zero traffic up the Turnpike and past Waterville; saw some exiting traffic in Newport so got off onto 152 near Pittsburgh. No traffic to Guilford, then I made a mistake of listening to my dad telling me to get onto a back road instead of Route 6 because Google Maps said to. The issue was that it was "junior" to Route 6 in the merge in Monson, and backed up a mile. No cell service, so Google didn't expect or detect the traffic, so kept pushing people that way. We were well into totality and it eventually stopped in Monson, a few miles shy of meeting friends who had flown to Greenville. The event was spectacular watching across a snowcovered lake. Surrounded by white snow I took my sunglasses off before totality; didn't need them. I had spotted the car so we were the first ones out of town. The Monson traffic had been a blessing in disguise, as we would have been stuck in Greenville for an hour. From Abbott, we did an end-around of Guilford to avoid that bottleneck, west on 16 and south on 151. Amazing to go through towns with 50 people and see people at every turnout and every clearing. That was a good choice, although 151 had a 20 minute backup into Athens since, again, it was "junior" to the other road. I had originally plotted a route onto a road which would be out of the way by 2 miles but avoid the merge. It would have been faster, but wasn't a dealbreaker. A bit of traffic crossing Kennebec in Hinckley and then freeflow to Portland for dinner. Drive time under 5 hours each way from Boston. Route planning almost as exciting as the event itself!

I think that's three lanes of traffic squeezing into one!

Dallas also has from satellite maps the instance of the cumulus clouds dissipating as the solar radiation decreases and totality passes, then increasing back. Just very cool to watch.

Apparently Franconia Notch cleared out around 0330 and then there was additional traffic this morning. Taking three lanes and cramming it into one is not a recipe for success, I guess!

Basically a reminder that while it might say April, Tux isn't spring skiing this week or probably weekend. (The Sherbie should be in, though!)

I think most people are, rightly or wrongly, going to a destination, not the side of the road. I mean people have booked rooms in totality for $1000, so I assume they have destinations chosen. (This is, of course, the wrong way to do it; it doesn't really matter where you are since you are looking at the sun; mountains nearby would be fun to be able to see them in the light when you're in the shadow, being on top of a mountain might let you watch the shadow as long as there's not any FG which is not a given this time of year. I would assume Mansfield will be mobbed, even with the trail conditions up there, which might actually be "microspikes".) In 2017 we wound up at random pullout near a lake in Southern Illinois. We got there about 45 minutes before totality and there were people parked along the road but no real traffic. If the storm hits far enough north and there's nowhere to pull off it won't help, but traffic will mostly all be going in the same direction at least so if people pull off there won't be too much trouble pulling into the other lane. Somewhere like Willoughby Gap might be fun to watch the shadow cross the mountains (there will be a split second when one side is in light and the other side in darkness), I guess? But the whole thing is, for the most part, the cool stuff is going on up in the sky, so there's really no need to be in a cool place to view it, the sky is the same.

Yeah this seems pretty reasonable. There probably won't be traffic going north from Boston since people will be spread out over the morning, although I would be somewhat surprised if the Manchester-to-Concord section is not slammed. (A good time to go around on Dunbarton/Logging Hill.) 93 north should then be fine since it is a 3-to-4 split in Concord, but I'd watch the Notch where there could be quite a backup where it goes from 2 to 1. (Generally there's not an issue here even at the busiest times since enough hiking/skiing/leaf peeping people peel off further south.) If it's bad, go across 25 or Kinsman instead over to 91, which I doubt will be bad, and then you can meter off onto some random side roads into Vermont. I'm looking at various areas which are high up and clear, to be able to see distant hills in the day while you stand in the night. That is an advantage of going for a hike up a mountain (the main disadvantage, of course, being that there's a much higher likelihood of FG. Some of the open fields up in, like, Irasburg would fit the bill quite well.

I had forgotten after getting some ECT with my toaster in the bathtub.

Was it the CMC that had sniffed out the whiff for basically all of Mass for the Valentine's Day storm?

NAM runs the low straight up the Connecticut River Valley like the GFS did at 18Z.

Yeah this does not look bad at all. This would be a game-time decision based on winds. Hoping for a day like today.

Will be a good day to break out the DeLormes, that's for sure. I think a lot of people are going to make the mistake of choosing a place in advance and being wedded to it. Hotels are completely gone in totality for an event which occurs at 1500, but you can get a hotel in MHT for $100 and drive up (or for this forum, just drive up). I would expect some traffic on the highways on Monday but nothing outrageous since the trip up will be spread out somewhat. I think people will probably stick to the interstates on the way up since traffic won't be too bad and a lot of people want to experience the whole event, even though the lead up to totality is unremarkable. (Oh, look, my shadow is lighter.) I could see some bottlenecks getting trafficky in the places we see traffic during peaks in Northern New England, especially 93 south of Concord, and further up 93, potentially at Franconia Notch since everyone will be trying to go through. 25 across from Plymouth might be a good choice. Coming back will be … whoo boy. One option would be to just go get dinner somewhere (if you can get a reservation) and wait it out. But it's a Monday, probably a lot of people will be going back for work/school, and it will be like if every ski mountain shut down the lifts at the exact same time times 10. If everywhere in NNE is CLR then it won't be as bad as traffic will filter onto 89, 91 and 93 (again, the Notch might be a mess), but if there's a NWely flow and really only the Champlain Valley is in the clear 89 could be a nightmare, that is, if people are smart enough to all go to the Champlain Valley. My tactic to get back to Boston in that case would probably be to take 15 across Vermont and then 89 south to 25 to cut over to 93 if I saw a lot of red on the traffic maps. Assuming the cell network isn't entirely overwhelmed, it will definitely pay to have a navigator checking traffic maps. It's almost as fun as the event itself. Almost.

Imagine if we'd had this forum in late March of 1997. I remember funding a Boston Globe from March 28 a while after the storm and the forecast was for "partly sunny and in the 50s on March 31." Yeah, well, no.

This is going to be a study in bottlenecks, and coming back will sort of be a ski weekend on steroids. I doubt traffic going up is going to be a huge issue: a lot of people will go early and it will be relatively spread out since people have the whole morning and much of the afternoon. I'll definitely leave some extra time, though, and be ready to find some back roads if necessary. Franconia Notch will be interesting since it will squeeze traffic down to a single lane. There's almost never enough traffic there to cause backups, because so much peels off further south, but this could be an exception, since totality starts further north. Back roads may help since I don't think many non-frequent travelers up there will take them. Boston to Saint Albans via Kinsman Notch and Route 15 only adds about an hour of drive time but probably avoids the traffic. Assuming 93 isn't jammed up into Concord. I'd guess 91 will be in better shape than 93/89, although the interchange at 89 might get tricky. But the way up the dispersal of people onto different routes should help. Now, for the way back. The optimal viewing location is somewhere you can view the eclipse and then get the hell out of dodge as quickly as possible. You want to be on the side of totality your eventual highway is on, and you want to be close to it. This is what we did in Southern Illinois in 2017. Get in the car and hit the road. The only issue there was that there kept being 2-lanes-to-1 construction which led to long bottlenecks. I could foresee that happening to Franconia Notch, and I'd probably take 91 around that. (If there is a bluebird day, my plans are to head up to the NEK, possibly via 89 and 91 instead of 93, and definitely avoiding the Notch on the way back. But if you can be an early vehicle through the Notch, that will meter traffic onto 93 south quite well, and you'll probably get to Concord before the masses come down 93 and 89. I think the optimal location to view it would be somewhere along I-91 north of St J, but in the southbound lanes. Eclipse passes, you're already on the road ready to go south. It's going to be as if every skier at every mountain on a Sunday afternoon got off the lift and into their car at the same time. I'd expect the roads to be, uh, busy. I remember in 2017 watch the red on Google Maps across the country on either side of the eclipse. It's fun!