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Highlight: Cloud cover forecast for the April 8 solar eclipse. Texas and western New York have poorest viewing. Best viewing northern New England. Ohio Valley viewing forecast improving.
Fig. 1: The 0600 GMT GFS low cloud cover forecast valid at 2PM EDT Monday April 8, 2024. Low clouds form in the troposphere below 6,500 feet. Low clouds are most likely to block out viewing of the solar eclipse.
Discussion: The cloud cover forecast for the Monday afternoon solar eclipse is steadily improving. Poorest viewing is likely in Texas. East-central and east Texas is overcast with low clouds (Fig. 1) with rainfall. Conditions improve rapidly in Arkansas where rain ceases, and attendant low clouds are breaking. Typical of well-organized synoptic scale weather systems producing precipitation, middle clouds (6,500-16,500 feet) are plentiful. While low clouds will block viewing of the eclipse, middle clouds have varying opaqueness that allow at least partial viewing of the eclipse. Middle clouds are absent across Arkansas during the eclipse (Fig. 2). However, high clouds (above 16,500 feet) are present across Arkansas and the southwest Ohio Valley (Fig. 3). Low and middle clouds are not an issue across the Ohio Valley although high clouds are present. Viewing should be reasonable in this region. Along and north of a warm front, low clouds are forecast for western portions of New York and Pennsylvania. In this zone, eclipse viewing is poor. Middle and high clouds are buoyant across New York, the northern Mid-Atlantic, and northern New York plus the southern 60% of New England. The total cloud cover forecast continues to indicate that the best viewing of the eclipse is far northern Vermont and New Hampshire and most of Maine (Fig. 4).
Fig. 2: The 0600 GMT GFS middle cloud cover forecast valid at 2PM EDT Monday April 8, 2024. Middle clouds form in the troposphere between 6,500 feet and 16,000 feet. Middle clouds will partially block viewing of the solar eclipse.
Fig. 3: The 0600 GMT GFS high cloud cover forecast valid at 2PM EDT Monday April 8, 2024. High clouds form in the troposphere above 16,500 feet. High clouds offer only slight interference with solar eclipse viewing.
Fig. 4: The 0600 GMT GFS total cloud cover forecast valid at 2PM EDT Monday April 8, 2024.