The big day of the eclipse had finally arrived. For the past couple weeks, we had agonized over cloud cover forecasts. Increasingly, the forecasts showed clouds to be present over a large part of the eclipse path. In some areas, these were forecast to be mostly high, thin clouds. However, over Texas, where I had picked up a tour group for Tempest Tours, low clouds were also forecast to move in. Forecasts made a day or two before the event did not look as bad, so we decided to stick with the plans that had been made months earlier and stay at the Arlington hotel rather than go running far to the northeast the next day. There did not appear to be a big advantage to pre-positioning the previous days because there was no place between Texas and Maine where the forecasts consistently showed clear skies. We would start early in the morning and use whatever time we had to adjust our position.
Well, morning came, and the skies in Arlington were sunny, but it appeared the low clouds were running a little ahead of schedule, and they would move over our position well before eclipse time. I started us northeast where towards Broken Bow, Oklahoma where our odds looked a bit better. However, the clouds filled in there even faster, and soon, I was looking at satellite wondering whether to turn around and go back or to try to go farther northeast along the eclipse path. Some hope arrived in the form of a hole in the clouds that was developing over northeastern Texas. The initial front of low clouds was pretty thick, but 20 miles behind it, the clouds were breaking up. The break-up caused sunshine to fill back in, and that got more cumulus clouds developing, so the hole was beginning to fill in again. I chased as far as I could follow this shrinking hole in the clouds, but eventually, it was time to set up as the eclipse was beginning.
We passed through the town of Foreman, Arkansas, and I wanted to go just beyond the next clump of clouds, but as I looked back, the cumulus clouds were fewer and smaller right behind us. There was also an open park area full of people who had come to view the eclipse. We decided to turn around and view the eclipse from there. As we set up, a couple of the local residents came and talked to us, telling us they had expected a much, much larger crowd of people, but numbers were much lower than expected-- definitely not overwhelming like they had feared. We all set up our cameras and waited for totality, looking up at the few remaining clouds and hoping they would not interfere with visibility.
Here is what the skies looked like when we set up in Foreman, Arkansas.
There were still a few cumulus around, and there was a high, thin deck of cirrus and cirrostratus, but it looked like that could pass off to the northeast by the time totality arrived. As it turned out, there were eclipse flights flying at this altitude, and the exhaust from the planes added to the humidity at that level, keeping the high, thin clouds in place. These high, thin clouds prevented me from getting really detailed pictures of the corona as I would attempt to increase exposure, and clouds would appear instead of the outer corona. We still were able to capture some nice prominences in the lower coronasphere. On my video below, you can see the extent of the cloudiness during totality. It wasn't too bad, but one can see a few larger cumulus on the horizon. There probably were some areas where the clouds obscured totality.
This is my first in-focus shot. A couple sunspots are visible.
After a few more minutes, only one sunspot remains.
The mountains on the moon are silhouetted against the sun.
Just a sliver remains now.
Totality.
Here is a crop of the above picture, focusing on the prominences.
These prominences on the northeast side of the sun were visible in the greatest detail.
I increased exposure to show the corona. The visibility of the corona was limited by the clouds. Nevertheless, you can see the southern flare.
The diamond ring appears at the end of totality.
The moon is pulling away.
The eclipse was now complete, and we had successfully navigated out of the clouds to see it. It was very interesting how the eclipse caused many of the clouds to dissipate. You can see it in the satellite loop below. It shows extensive fields of cumulus prior to the eclipse, but after the shadow passed over the region and the sunlight reappeared, a lot of these clouds were gone. Thus, a lot of the worry about clouds prior to an eclipse is really for nothing, but there were a few spots where totality might have been obscured. I wanted to play it safe.
With totality now complete, it was time to find some storms. SPC had an enhanced risk of storms in the forecast, and there was also a risk for tornadoes. As it turned out, there were no tornadoes reported. We drove south to find some storms. As we were coming through New Boston, on our way south, I spotted an anvil to the west-northwest, so we detoured west to check out these new storms. It appeared that they had popped up, somehow, in response to the changes in heating from the eclipse because as we approached them, they quickly whithered away. It was time to continue southward.
I looked back through my pictures and discovered I had not taken any pictures of storms. Indeed, we did not have any great photography opportunities. We stopped in Longview to grab some fast food dinner when we got close to the storms that were moving northward out of southeastern Texas. We were greeted with outflow and light to moderate rain. We started to target some heavier storms and wanted to find a good base on the south side, but there really wasn't much to see. We pulled over at a cemetary just west of Gladewater to watch a core pass over us. We anticipated some hail but did not get anything larger than pea size. We continued on to Tyler, where we stayed the night. After we arrived and got settled in our rooms, a close lightning strike wreaked havoc with the hotel's electrical systems, and most outlets in the rooms no longer worked. The hot water heater was also knocked out, so we had cold showers in the morning. Nevertheless, we were entertained by a lot of rain, lightning, and thunder during the night and into the morning.
Storm Prediction Center 1630 UTC Day 1 Outlook along with verified reports for the day.
Our route for the day. 418 miles.
We stayed the night in Tyler, Texas. Our hotel lost half its power, and we had cold showers in the morning.
