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The August 21, 2017 Great American Eclipse


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11 minutes ago, weathafella said:

Are you solo?   Gallatin looks a good spot with 45 seconds more totality va Nashville.

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.

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18 minutes ago, weathafella said:

Are you solo?   Gallatin looks a good spot with 45 seconds more totality va Nashville.

With my brother. I gather you will be with family?

On your recommendation a while back, I reserved 2 tix to the Gallatin event. We are staying in some random motel in the city Sunday night, then plan to stage early Monday morning.

But I'm a little nervous about making return flights at 5pm. Normal drive from Gallatin to BNA ~45 min, so figure we will have 2 hours heading back at 2pm. Traffic warnings sounds apocalyptic. I read that a group of 300 Japanese tourists made reservations to Gallatin a year ago, so extrapolate from that.

Was also unclear to me how we get to the soccer fields that are the "main viewing area", and how that relates to the concerts etc... my preference is minimal light pollution and minimal obstruction of the horizons, which an open field (or elevated point) could achieve. But even if traffic and parking is a complete disaster, looks like plenty of options to improvise:

Gallatin_Triple_Creek_Park.jpg.79a4c28764587459a803a62f25d9b0bf.jpg

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8 minutes ago, wxsniss said:

With my brother. I gather you will be with family?

On your recommendation a while back, I reserved 2 tix to the Gallatin event. We are staying in some random motel in the city Sunday night, then plan to stage early Monday morning.

But I'm a little nervous about making return flights at 5pm. Normal drive from Gallatin to BNA ~45 min, so figure we will have 2 hours heading back at 2pm. Traffic warnings sounds apocalyptic. I read that a group of 300 Japanese tourists made reservations to Gallatin a year ago, so extrapolate from that.

Was also unclear to me how we get to the soccer fields that are the "main viewing area", and how that relates to the concerts etc... my preference is minimal light pollution and minimal obstruction of the horizons, which an open field (or elevated point) could achieve. But even if traffic and parking is a complete disaster, looks like plenty of options to improvise:

Gallatin_Triple_Creek_Park.jpg.79a4c28764587459a803a62f25d9b0bf.jpg

I'm on my own.  My wife decided to wait until 2024.  Of course she's 12 years younger than me with better odds..lol.

i decided to wait until Tuesday to return fearing difficulties getting to BNA Monday night.  I also want to relax and celebrate in Nashville which I really like.  

Im going to try to get to Gallatin by 9AM-maybe sooner and have breakfast there. 

We should meet at the venue!

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29 minutes ago, winterymix said:

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.

Sticking with Nashville for now-I think cloud issues look ok and I enjoy Nashville.  

 

12Z Euro clear as a bell for Nashville.

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18 minutes ago, weathafella said:

I'm on my own.  My wife decided to wait until 2024.  Of course she's 12 years younger than me with better odds..lol.

i decided to wait until Tuesday to return fearing difficulties getting to BNA Monday night.  I also want to relax and celebrate in Nashville which I really like.  

Im going to try to get to Gallatin by 9AM-maybe sooner and have breakfast there. 

We should meet at the venue!

We should! To clarify, I'm staying at a "random motel in the city" meaning in downtown Nashville. So plan to drive up to Gallatin Monday morning depending on traffic. Will have to make contingency plans based on clouds / traffic.

Yeah Euro / CMC / GFS have held decent. At least no large scale synoptic system to mess it up, with a decent southeast ridge and high pressure.

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1 minute ago, wxsniss said:

We should! To clarify, I'm staying at a "random motel in the city" meaning in downtown Nashville. So plan to drive up to Gallatin Monday morning depending on traffic. Will have to make contingency plans based on clouds / traffic.

Yeah Euro / CMC / GFS have held decent. At least no large scale synoptic system to mess it up, with a decent southeast ridge and high pressure.

We should think of a rendezvous point.  I'm staying not far from BNA.  I was thinking of driving to the Vanderbilt area for dinner Sunday evening -nice neighborhood and walkable.

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4 minutes ago, weathafella said:

We should think of a rendezvous point.  I'm staying not far from BNA.  I was thinking of driving to the Vanderbilt area for dinner Sunday evening -nice neighborhood and walkable.

I have to check with my brother. It's his first time in Nashville and he had ambitious hopes to enjoy the music scene / honky-tonk bars / Opryland etc Sunday night. If we do meet up, the Vanderbilt area would be perfect. My flight from Logan gets in around 5:30pm.

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7 minutes ago, wxsniss said:

I have to check with my brother. It's his first time in Nashville and he had ambitious hopes to enjoy the music scene / honky-tonk bars / Opryland etc Sunday night. If we do meet up, the Vanderbilt area would be perfect. My flight from Logan gets in around 5:30pm.

What time is your BOS departure?  I get in a bit past 4 with a short connection in Detroit. 

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If I do Missouri, I am looking at the St. Clair to St. Genevieve corridor in eastern MO. The center line runs through both of those places but I may try to get a little outside of a town to not deal with lights (I did read that some places are disabling the lights from turning on during the eclipse).   

map-of-missouri-cities.gif.c880b0cf8558d9a9cf61cd41de187265.gif

Been thinking about how I want to experience this eclipse, and I am probably not going to seek out one of those organized viewing parties.  This is my first total solar eclipse and I want to take it all in with minimal outside distractions, and I'm sure I'd be pissed if there's a bunch of cursing and hollering, etc.

 

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Just booked hotels in Omaha and Louisville......so with the on in Quincy IL I've got some options for where to go Sunday when I fly in to Madison.....long drive but I get in early...all those spots are 6 to 7 hour drives.....and they put me within 2 to 3 hours of totality.....I can cancel free by Friday night 11:59.....lolz

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1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

If I do Missouri, I am looking at the St. Clair to St. Genevieve corridor in eastern MO. The center line runs through both of those places but I may try to get a little outside of a town to not deal with lights (I did read that some places are disabling the lights from turning on during the eclipse).   

Been thinking about how I want to experience this eclipse, and I am probably not going to seek out one of those organized viewing parties.  This is my first total solar eclipse and I want to take it all in with minimal outside distractions, and I'm sure I'd be pissed if there's a bunch of cursing and hollering, etc.

 

 

I'm still not sure where I'm going. Assuming clouds aren't an issue I will obviously stick close to St. Louis...just not sure if it will be north or south of the Missouri River yet. The St. Clair area is one I've considered. I'd be willing bet to most natives will either go west on I-44 or south on I-55. Interestingly, nearly the entire length of the I-70 corridor will be in the path. MoDOT has been advertising the eclipse on the dymaic message boards throughout the state, but you know there'll be truckers and other people who are completely oblivious to what's happening.

I'm planning on avoiding organized gatherings as well. But, setting up in a random parking lot and taking it in with the rest of those there is fine if that's how it works out.

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Will be in Hastings, NE, hopefully in between shortwaves. Anyone from here targeting NE?

The whole dang Denver metro area is COMPLETELY out of eclipse glasses and the ones I ordered from Amazon last week never came. Maybe some places along our trip route might have some, but feeling a bit out of luck there at this time. Everyplace I've tried has just sold out when I get there. Wish I could make some- a longtime ago I used to use 35mm film...

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4 minutes ago, mayjawintastawm said:

Will be in Hastings, NE, hopefully in between shortwaves. Anyone from here targeting NE?

 

I'm targeting Grand Island and maybe NW towards Ravenna. I'll be coming in from OKC on Sunday night to Grand Island, sleeping in the car and head NW at dawn. GFS keeps showing scattered/broken cloud cover, so that has me a bit nervous.

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13 minutes ago, mayjawintastawm said:

Will be in Hastings, NE, hopefully in between shortwaves. Anyone from here targeting NE?

The whole dang Denver metro area is COMPLETELY out of eclipse glasses and the ones I ordered from Amazon last week never came. Maybe some places along our trip route might have some, but feeling a bit out of luck there at this time. Everyplace I've tried has just sold out when I get there. Wish I could make some- a longtime ago I used to use 35mm film...

I may decide to opt for staying in Omaha and heading into zone in Nebraska also....Hastings was an option I looked at a couple weeks ago.....all up in the air right now

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3 hours ago, ice1972 said:

It's gotta be.....I read earlier some WFO's were trying to incorporate it into the forecasts.....pretty cool

I actually remember that happening during the March 1970 eclipse, and some cumulus clouds dissipating in the process

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45 minutes ago, JBG said:

I actually remember that happening during the March 1970 eclipse, and some cumulus clouds dissipating in the process

Here you go.....this was refreshing to watch.....total throwback.....I wasn't even born yet but despite it being 47 years ago everything that happened then and what folks experienced then is gonna all repeat itself on Monday.....watch all of the episodes.....

 

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2 hours ago, winterymix said:

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....

Some supersaturation wrt ice around 200 mb but otherwise southeastern TN is looking pretty good as of now.

59959c9d8d043_Screenshotfrom2017-08-1709-38-14.thumb.png.a039841bd6de58f99782476ea3ee6d6d.png

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10 hours ago, ice1972 said:

Here you go.....this was refreshing to watch.....total throwback.....I wasn't even born yet but despite it being 47 years ago everything that happened then and what folks experienced then is gonna all repeat itself on Monday.....watch all of the episodes.....

 

I well remember that event.  In Boston, we had nearly 97% yet it didn't get that dark.  That's when I knew I had to get to totality.  Or if I were lucky I could have flown my "Lear jet to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun"

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1 minute ago, weathafella said:

I well remember that event.  In Boston, we had nearly 97% yet it didn't get that dark.  That's when I knew I had to get to totality.  Or if I were lucky I could have flown my "Lear jet to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun"

Ya you definitely need to be in the total zone.....its crazy how unnoticeable 97% even 98% is and how just being outside the zone even a mile or two can make all the difference.....this guy at work was like "meh I'm not gonna waste my time I've seen one before and I wasn't impresssed"...........I asked him if he was in totality and he was like "IDK".....lol

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Just now, ice1972 said:

Ya you definitely need to be in the total zone.....its crazy how unnoticeable 97% even 98% is and how just being outside the zone even a mile or two can make all the difference.....this guy at work was like "meh I'm not gonna waste my time I've seen one before and I wasn't impresssed"...........I asked him if he was in totality and he was like "IDK".....lol

I know!  All these ignorant people with that reaction! 

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1 minute ago, weathafella said:

I know!  All these ignorant people with that reaction! 

I'm actually pretty surprised at how meh a lot of folks are.......I mean this is a weather board and lots of geeks here where this sort of stuff is on the radar more than the average schmo but seriously.......I'm getting a lot of "wait wut? you're flying to Wisconsin and have 3 hotels booked where? and you're gonna drive hours to one of them so you can then drive hours in the morning to see something thats how long? 2.5 minutes? lol"..........a lot of that

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Just now, ice1972 said:

I'm actually pretty surprised at how meh a lot of folks are.......I mean this is a weather board and lots of geeks here where this sort of stuff is on the radar more than the average schmo but seriously.......I'm getting a lot of "wait wut? you're flying to Wisconsin and have 3 hotels booked where? and you're gonna drive hours to one of them so you can then drive hours in the morning to see something thats how long? 2.5 minutes? lol"..........a lot of that

Yet everyone who has experienced totality say it's one of the all timers.   People operate in silos.  I looked up about a month ago and was struck with the fact that I'm 70 and always wanted to see totality.   A no brainer.  Besides, I've always enjoyed Nashville.

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