The August 21 forecast for four prime eclipse cities as of 2 pm August 16, 2017.
If you have the flexibility to travel to any of several prime eclipse locations it is getting harder and harder to keep track of the eclipse weather and make a final location decision. The forecast is changing daily for several locations. My process for making a final location decision might be helpful to you as you make your final eclipse plans.
This is what I will be doing over the next few days. You may have more or less travel time and flexibility than me. (If only I had a private jet!)
I am checking all four of my widely spaced (in travel several hours) prime eclipse locations from Casper Wyoming to Cameron Missouri at several weather services. There is no need to check all the towns in between. I can do that later. My preferred weather forecasts are at Weather.com and Weather Underground but I do check other weather sites
Casper Wyoming was my first choice 8 months ago based on historically low amounts of cloud cover compared to other locations. But averages won’t save you on eclipse day and Casper’s forecast has been very iffy for several days now. That could change.
Yesterday Cameron Missouri was looking very good with sunny weather and Grand Island Nebraska was ok with partly cloudy. Today Grand Island is looking quite good with mostly sunny and Cameron is not looking so good with partly cloudy for part of the eclipse followed by occasional thunderstorms for the rest of the eclipse. Tomorrow? Who knows? I will keep checking every day and narrow down my options.
As we get closer to August 21, the more limited my travel choices become with less and less travel time to work with. I can’t be hovering near Cameron Missouri late Sunday night and make a last minute decision to go to Casper Wyoming. Saturday I will drive to somewhere near the two locations that are looking the best. I will check the weather again Sunday morning and decide if I need to move again. By Sunday night I need to be as close as possible to the location with the best weather forecast for Sunday.
Hotels are fully book all along the path of totality. Where will I stay? Fortunately for me I have friends near all but one of my prime locations. If that was not the case it would not be the first time I stayed in my car all night to get the photo I wanted the next morning.
I signed up for daily weather forecasts by email at Weather Underground. Every day I get a daily weather forecast with a link to the 10 day weather forecast for each of my preferred eclipse locations. Each city comes in a separate email. I signed up for the first city and gave my email address. Then I repeated the process to add the rest of the cities.
No matter what you do, this is all a bit of a gamble. The weather forecast might look great Sunday night and change by the eclipse on Monday. Here’s hoping you find clear skies for the eclipse!
Links
The Great American Eclipse Series
The Great American Eclipse Series  – All of my eclipse articles are listed at this link. Check back for new articles as they appear. This is the 32nd article in the series.
More Links