Total Solar Eclipse, April 8, 2024

[Henry's Weather]

12 hours ago, weathafella said:

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.

I was almost certainly in the same exact traffic jam - we left Groveton NH at around 4:30 and arrived in Cambridge at 2 AM

[dendrite]

41 minutes 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.

31% of poss sunshine in August. That compares to 61% in CON. At least it’s a nice trip either way. 

[powderfreak]

5 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

All true as it was incredible but I would want to hear from those people with young kids. Easy for some to say who basically walked outside though.

Ha, you’ve seemed to be finding reasons to meh this for a while, odd given how stoked you get for certain things.

I am sure you can find people who had a rough time in traffic but read the thread, everyone is saying the same thing.

I’m definitely traveling for another one.

[wxsniss]

8 minutes ago, Henry's Weather said:

I was almost certainly in the same exact traffic jam - we left Groveton NH at around 4:30 and arrived in Cambridge at 2 AM

Ditto... was in that same exact traffic jam as you and Weathafella on 112 "Lost River Road" to get onto 93

North Woodstock NH 10:30pm... you Jerry and I'm sure others were in this:

Backed out of our parking spot in Newport 4pm

Finally exited Newport 5:30pm

Arrived in Boston 2am, (non-stop... empty bottles in car)

I don't remember hearing a single honk the entire drive.

As Powderfreak and others said, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

I think compounding things was that Google / Apple Maps really struggled to update anything and gave some ridiculous suggestions even with cell phone service (I had downloaded offline maps before trip).

Some media attention to this:

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/04/10/eclipse-traffic-new-hampshire/

[Angus]

as @ariofmentioned, half the fun was navigating the traffic. We hiked off of little Bigelow (3.5-4 miles) while my boss with young family departed from Eustis Ridge immediately after the event. He got home to Milford MA area about 11:20 while I arrived in Concord MA at midnight. Heck, we stopped for a quick pizza in Portland at 930! My big decision was going west on rt 2 at Norridgewock versus going to Waterville and getting on 95 and from there to 295. I didn't get on 295 until below the Gardiner tolls on 295. The Sugarloaf area is constrained by rivers and therefore bridges - there aren't many bridges so those became choke points. @HIPPYVALLEY did Iceland in 2017 during summer months - such a different landscape - would be very cool.

 

[DavisStraight]

1 hour 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.

That one just touches northern Iceland, looks like Spain is a better place to see it.

[Ginx snewx]

53 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Ha, you’ve seemed to be finding reasons to meh this for a while, odd given how stoked you get for certain things.

I am sure you can find people who had a rough time in traffic but read the thread, everyone is saying the same thing.

I’m definitely traveling for another one.

Honestly very very happy for all. I just said my opinion about traffic and haven't seen any posts about people with young kids experience.  I would have definitely stayed overnight somewhere. If anything brings happiness to the masses I am all for it. I was kind of sad for the thick cloudy people.  Understanding and learning about science is extremely important 

 

[Ginx snewx]

 

[tamarack]

On 4/9/2024 at 11:09 AM, Angus said:

at the recommendation of @tamarack climbed Little Bigelow Mountain which looks south and west towards Sugarloaf and the Crockers. Excellent choice and thank you so much. There was something like 3 dozen people up there with my party of six including two guys from Franklin county search and rescue who stayed up and were going to do a sweep after everyone had gone down. They also packed out the trail on Sunday which was pretty awesome. We got up about an hour before totality and everyone was in a festive mood - families, some students, a large crew from Ashbury Park NJ??? Watching the darkness move across the valley floor towards us was pretty spectacular. The winds really increased substantially and it got very cool. Just an awesome experience. Traffic getting through Madison and Norridgewock was hilarious - to experience a one mile backup in those towns is a once in a lifetime experience too! Route 16/27 and the area around Sugarloaf access road was all time from what I have been told. Without and with light!

 

Great report!  What a wonderful 'Mainiac' deed having the almost 3 miles/1,800' gain packed out ahead of time (longer if the 0.8 miles of the county road from LFD wasn't plowed).  In my PM I asked where you were at totality, here answered, as the noted road/locales made little sense to me - from my place in New Sharon I go 134 (Starks Road) to 16 to Long Falls Dam, as we're 2 towns west from Norridgewock.  I guess you drove 295 to the Belgrade exit (112) then 27/back on US 2/201/16/LFD.

I drove up some 10 miles beyond Eustis - actually more as I looked (5 more miles) for a safe place to turn around on the twisty highway with narrow shoulders - and parked at the mouth of a plowed gravel road 61 miles from home.  On the 1:15-3:00 drive on 27, I encountered relatively few cars (most went long earlier, except for 2 places.  The hill immediately north of the Sugarloaf entry had cars parked on both sides, though 2 semis were able to meet, carefully.  Where the South Branch of the Dead River enters Flagstaff Lake there is a 1/3-mile stretch with long views both east and west, and for perhaps 1/2 mile both sides had cars.  Here LEOs were keeping traffic moving slowly as there were many folks walking between the parked cars. 
At my stop (The "N Road"?) there were 2 other cars, 5 other people and I saw the show from about half obscured to perhaps 2:30 of totality - great show, with Venus and Jupiter in display, though the skies were still blue/gray.  The only black was the moon.  We also could detect the mountains and valleys of the moon, as the valleys allowed a bit brighter corona to be seen.

Heading back, I knew the 2 choke points would slow things down, especially at Sugarloaf where deputies were alternating strings of cars on 27 with those exiting Sugarloaf.  To my dismay, traffic remained slow for the 15 miles to Kingfield, then suddenly became wide open.  32 miles from viewpoint to Kingfield took 2.5 hours, then 29 from there to home, 45 minutes.  

[LSC97wxnut]

Figured I'd share my getting home story, although it isn't as epic as some of the other ones already posted.

Not sure how I managed to beat a bunch of traffic heading home after leaving Lyndonville, but I did.  Guess I was ahead of everyone who wanted the extra minute of totality further north?

Left a little before 4:00pm and took 5 south past the golf course and into St. J. Made a bit of a mistake taking Hospital Drive as it was packed getting up the hill to 91. 

From there it was really slow going to the 93 off ramp, but I decided to risk 91 to 89, and it turned out to be the right idea.

91 was slow, but moving ok and got to West Lebanon for dinner around 6:30.  Where I went was super busy and I didn't leave there until 7:30.

89 was also slow for a while, but it somehow broke up south of Sunapee and was normal highway speed for a while until just north of 93 in Concord.

Google directed me off at exit 2 onto really local roads around to exit 12 on 93. I'd guess I saved a number of minutes there.

Made it to the southbound Hooksett rest area at 9:00 for a brief stop and after the tolls, it wasn't much worse than after a race at Loudon. Got home a little bit after 10:00, tired from day's driving, but absolutely worth it.

I will absolutely try for Colorado in 2045.

 

 

[OceanStWx]

As someone who has never experienced totality, I'm sure it looks the same way just before totality arrives, but seeing the eclipse shadow pass JUST to our north was pretty cool in its own right.

We took the kids out of school and drove as far north as my in-laws (99.12%), but we weren't about to trap ourselves in the car with them in the traffic to the north. Dark enough to see Venus and Jupiter, the kids got a kick out of it.

[Henry's Weather]

2 hours ago, wxsniss said:

Ditto... was in that same exact traffic jam as you and Weathafella on 112 "Lost River Road" to get onto 93

North Woodstock NH 10:30pm... you Jerry and I'm sure others were in this:

Backed out of our parking spot in Newport 4pm

Finally exited Newport 5:30pm

Arrived in Boston 2am, (non-stop... empty bottles in car)

I don't remember hearing a single honk the entire drive.

As Powderfreak and others said, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

I think compounding things was that Google / Apple Maps really struggled to update anything and gave some ridiculous suggestions even with cell phone service (I had downloaded offline maps before trip).

Some media attention to this:

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/04/10/eclipse-traffic-new-hampshire/

I call it “biblical traffic”. Yeah, that was one hell of a commute back. We got through 5 episodes of the S-Town podcast during the latter half of the commute, for some perspective. Some of my friends opted to perch out the window and smoke cigarettes during the crawl. Was a pretty all-American day for us, and one that I won’t forget ever.

[tamarack]

As others mentioned, the comradeship was a bonus to the event.  It started for me days earlier with the back-and-forth PMs to Angus - really pleased at how it worked out for their party.  We were only 6 at our viewing spot and the younger couple stayed mostly to themselves.  The other 3, a 40s-ish couple and the father of one of them, were eager to chat.  In the 30-minute run-up to totality we found many commonalities.  They were from New Gloucester, Maine, and noted the great X-C trails at Pineland Farms, where I used to do forest management on Parks and Lands ownership, and Opportunity Farms, where I helped take down the firetower, much of which is an observation tower on Oquossoc Bald, between Rangeley and Mooselook Lakes.  They also had been to the Fort Kent/Madawaska area, where we lived 1976-85.

We didn't note the sharp cooldown though there came a cool breeze during totality.  I'd guess the temp drop was closer to 5°, perhaps due to the 2-foot pack remaining up there that tempered the 60+ warmth farther south.

[weathafella]

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.

[tamarack]

17 minutes ago, weathafella said:

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

We were there in August 2017 and never saw full sun.  Never felt temps above 60 nor calm winds, and we never got more than 40 miles from Reykjavik.  Up at 66 North it's likely to be colder and cloudier.

[#NoPoles]

I'd love to go intercept totality in Egypt. Would make great pics with the pyramids. Also Australia sounds like another great choice to intercept totality

[j24vt]

My post eclipse travel story:  Spent 10 minutes walking home from the field next to our house.  Not many cars.  We are officially not on the beaten path

[CCHurricane]

Road tripped from Boston up just south of Jackson, ME.

Totality is a whole other ballgame.

Kudos to my buddy’s Samsung Galaxy, wildly good camera setup for a phone!

[NorEastermass128]

4 hours ago, wxsniss said:

Ditto... was in that same exact traffic jam as you and Weathafella on 112 "Lost River Road" to get onto 93

North Woodstock NH 10:30pm... you Jerry and I'm sure others were in this:

Backed out of our parking spot in Newport 4pm

Finally exited Newport 5:30pm

Arrived in Boston 2am, (non-stop... empty bottles in car)

I don't remember hearing a single honk the entire drive.

As Powderfreak and others said, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

I think compounding things was that Google / Apple Maps really struggled to update anything and gave some ridiculous suggestions even with cell phone service (I had downloaded offline maps before trip).

Some media attention to this:

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/04/10/eclipse-traffic-new-hampshire/

I was just ahead of you by about 45 mins! Note the timestamp and dash showing 112.  We were all out there together in the celestial KU. No snow KUs this season, so we made do. 

[ariof]

4 hours ago, Angus said:

as @ariofmentioned, half the fun was navigating the traffic. We hiked off of little Bigelow (3.5-4 miles) while my boss with young family departed from Eustis Ridge immediately after the event. He got home to Milford MA area about 11:20 while I arrived in Concord MA at midnight. Heck, we stopped for a quick pizza in Portland at 930! My big decision was going west on rt 2 at Norridgewock versus going to Waterville and getting on 95 and from there to 295. I didn't get on 295 until below the Gardiner tolls on 295. The Sugarloaf area is constrained by rivers and therefore bridges - there aren't many bridges so those became choke points. @HIPPYVALLEY did Iceland in 2017 during summer months - such a different landscape - would be very cool.

 

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!

[wxsniss]

5 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.

I imagine northern coast of Spain, where you might see the umbra shadow race over the ocean, would be pretty amazing... also close to sunset over the ocean which could be pretty wild.

Interestingly totality only lasts 1m50sec max.

Looks like path also goes over Ibiza, but not sure I'd have patience for that vibe while seeking natural beauty.

All again highlights just how special this NNE occurrence was.

[wxsniss]

17 hours ago, Hoth said:

The sun strangely and feebly yellowed, flashed and disappeared and the black hole burst forth from its heart. This elicited general gasps, clapping, and appeals to a higher power from all in attendance, and the most awe-inspiring spectacle I've ever seen was under way. How to adequately describe it? A coal-black heart of darkness wreathed with feathers of light in a deep twilit heaven, planets tom-peeping amid thin gossamer ribbons of cirrus, a rich gold sunset along the eastern horizon where the river dumps into the lake. I was stunned into silence, while my host on the flip side seemed to be experiencing a prolonged and quite plangent orgasm of sorts, emitting sobs and a string of high-pitched "oh-my-gods" through the whole thing. 

17 hours ago, Hoth said:

My host's 90+ year old parents observed the eclipse with us as well and agreed it was the most sublime three minutes of their time on this earth.

This is a beautiful account! Thank you! I had to read this to others. 

I love seeing these spontaneous poetic impressions from so many posters independently and across-the-board expressing how extraordinary this experience was.

And hits the spot as we all try to cling to the magic while real life shoves its way back.

I wish I had space to upload a video I took of the scene before/during at Prouty Beach, which apparently was a makeshift forum GTG... the anticipation the 30 seconds before, and then the eruption of shrieks and oh-my-gods the instant we get to 100%... still gives me chills.

[wxeyeNH]

6 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Ha, you’ve seemed to be finding reasons to meh this for a while, odd given how stoked you get for certain things.

I am sure you can find people who had a rough time in traffic but read the thread, everyone is saying the same thing.

I’m definitely traveling for another one.

Ginx and I are the same age.  If we are still around in 2045 I am going to send him south for the next good eclipse in the US.  The trip will be on me!!  Once he experiences totality he won't  be saying meh anymore!

[powderfreak]

2 hours ago, wxsniss said:

I love seeing these spontaneous poetic impressions from so many posters independently and across-the-board expressing how extraordinary this experience was.

And hits the spot as we all try to cling to the magic while real life shoves its way back.

I wish I had space to upload a video I took of the scene before/during at Prouty Beach, which apparently was a makeshift forum GTG... the anticipation the 30 seconds before, and then the eruption of shrieks and oh-my-gods the instant we get to 100%... still gives me chills.

Life has its ups and downs... you win some and lose some.  However, the factors that lined up to make this possible were pretty incredible.

This has been the wettest year, winter, whatever on record for some spots in New England.  It has precipitated a lot, it's been murky, we are back into it for a few days right now up here.  Its cloudy and damp right now, changing to cloudy and wet high elevation snow and valley rain showers over the weekend.

It has been so wet.  For so long.  However for this rare cosmic event the universe gave us euphoric weather.  Even without the eclipse, that sunshine and warmth (even in snow covered areas) would've been a banner day.  Throw in totality during the peak awesomeness of the weather/afternoon.  Mind-blowing.

How did we get so lucky?  It could've been 35F with dense fog and/or thick stratus with ease.  The fact that it wasn't raining and instead was perfect weather during this unstoppable event, damn.

[NoCORH4L]

7 hours ago, wxsniss said:

Ditto... was in that same exact traffic jam as you and Weathafella on 112 "Lost River Road" to get onto 93

North Woodstock NH 10:30pm... you Jerry and I'm sure others were in this:

Backed out of our parking spot in Newport 4pm

Finally exited Newport 5:30pm

Arrived in Boston 2am, (non-stop... empty bottles in car)

I don't remember hearing a single honk the entire drive.

As Powderfreak and others said, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

I think compounding things was that Google / Apple Maps really struggled to update anything and gave some ridiculous suggestions even with cell phone service (I had downloaded offline maps before trip).

Some media attention to this:

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/04/10/eclipse-traffic-new-hampshire/

This. My trip back to camp would have been 3 hours instead of 4, but I took some stupid detours instead of just staying on the main route. 

[NoCORH4L]

NH DOT/State Police could have done better. VT never does anything for traffic so I'm not surprised there, honestly... l'd write into the contract that they need a temp bridge or something to keep 91 (2) lanes instead of dropping to 1. It's kind of a safety issue.

NH gets all costs reimbursed by NASCAR for turning parts of 93 N into South. No one to charge here really.

I will say that VT had a lot of troopers stationed on 91 around St. Johnsbury.

[ROOSTA]

Just arrived back home after a stop in GA. Probably a perfect trip. The Eclipse was out-of-this-world. It took about a minute and realized...start taking pictures, IDIOT! Ended up with only 5 or 6 and only (1) good close-up. Etched in a memory for a lifetime.

[mreaves]

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Life has its ups and downs... you win some and lose some.  However, the factors that lined up to make this possible were pretty incredible.

This has been the wettest year, winter, whatever on record for some spots in New England.  It has precipitated a lot, it's been murky, we are back into it for a few days right now up here.  Its cloudy and damp right now, changing to cloudy and wet high elevation snow and valley rain showers over the weekend.

It has been so wet.  For so long.  However for this rare cosmic event the universe gave us euphoric weather.  Even without the eclipse, that sunshine and warmth (even in snow covered areas) would've been a banner day.  Throw in totality during the peak awesomeness of the weather/afternoon.  Mind-blowing.

How did we get so lucky?  It could've been 35F with dense fog and/or thick stratus with ease.  The fact that it wasn't raining and instead was perfect weather during this unstoppable event, damn.

Hell, if had been just a few days earlier it would have been obscured by heavy snow. 

[DavisStraight]

When I was in the pool in Sarasota, I met a guy from Ohio who lives in the path of totality, he said he wanted to get out of there before all the people came and took over his town with a traffic jams. I asked if he ever witnessed one, he said no. I said I hear it's a pretty spectacular event and you could watch it from your own yard, he said his give a shit meter didn't register. I was a bit dumbfounded; I would have at least stayed home to see it at least once to see what the excitement was all about.

[ChangeofSeasonsWX]

Yeah it always shocks me how much people take these events for granted. I would die for the opportunity to see totality from my backyard. I wasn't able to go north for this one and missed it. Total solar eclipses are probably one of the greatest celestial events you can witness. I'm too far south to see Aurora Borealis, and the next totality won't be until May 1, 2079. I took a trip to Alaska which wasn't cheap and planned on seeing the northern lights but that fell through the floor also. Just can't catch a break.