“THE APRIL 8th SOLAR ECLIPSE APPROACHES: Is this exciting or what?! I’ll be joining the WGN-TV eclipse live coverage a week from today on Monday, April 8th from 1pm to 2:30pm and am really looking forward to joining our team for this celestial extravaganza! We’ll have team members located across the Midwest. I hope you’ll join us!

“I’m heading south to the Carbondale area in downstate Illinois with WGN producer extraordinaire Katharin Czink, the amazing video journalist/producer Steve Scheuer and our entire WGN production team. We will be broadcasting live from there next Monday, April 8th. We’ve reserved space at a campground a little south of Carbondale—the same area from which we broadcast the 2017 total solar eclipse. What an experience that was! It’s hard to describe the experience of watching day turn to night in a matter of minutes at a time when the sun is usually shining brightly in the middle of the day.

“Weather is going to play a critical role in our ability to watch this amazing astronomical event. Predicting cloud cover is one of the most challenging meteorological parameters to forecast. Often, cloud decks occur in layers at multiple altitudes which produces a very complicated environment for viewing what’s going on above—such as Monday’s upcoming April 8th solar eclipse. So monitoring the weather and model projections of cloud coverage, which can vary from model model, will be critical.

“With the range of models available to forecasters today, no longer must we rely on a forecast of potential cloud coverage from a single computer model. Given the complexity of cloud coverage forecasting, averaging across a group of models is often the best way to reconcile the variations in predictions which so often occurs from different models. The process of averaging a series of forecasts is referred to as ‘ensembling.’

“The National Weather Service produces a whole series of ‘ensembled’ forecasts—including predictions of cloud cover. The current forecast of Monday, April 8 eclipse time cloud coverage over Carbondale based on this National Weather Service model blend suggests 32% of the sky is to see clouds. Interestingly, the forecast of cloud coverage leading up to the 2017 solar eclipse as viewed from Carbondale Illinois was 35%—a prediction that actually worked out quite well.

“It’s not perfect—but it could be a lot worse. Also of interest is the forecast off and artificial intelligence assisted model forecast run by the European medium range forecast center which effectively suggests southern Illinois used to be ‘dry slotted’—other words, and intrusion of drier air maybe present there. This AI-assisted model is new so we don’t have a lot of experience assessing its track record yet. But, there have been positive reviews, and it’s forecast of a ‘dry slot’ potential is interesting and a good aid in seeing the eclipse there.

“I’m posting a series of maps here of projected eclipse cloud cover, which you may find interesting. These forecasts should be viewed as preliminary and hardly the final word, but they do offer some insight into the weather that may occur.

“Among the maps which appear here is a NWS climatological cloud coverage map based on past cloud coverage on April 8th, the latest 1pm CDT Monday April 8, 2024 National Weather Service blended model of cloud cover for the southern Midwest, an interesting analysis of ensemble model forecasts for Carbondale, and a map on which the predicted cloud overage is laid out with the path of solar eclipse totality is indicated from University of Oklahoma PhD candidate Tomer Burg (Note: Burg has put together quite an eclipse weather page well worth checking out: http://arctic.som.ou.edu/tburg/products/realtime/eclipse/), several panels of the European Centre’s AI-assisted model showing moisture forecast at approximately the 5000 and 10,000 foot levels—which show the ‘dry slot’ that model is projecting across the southern Midwest. I post these AI forecasts, because they are new to the scene and it’s going to be interesting to see how they perform in this application.

“I’m returning from Hawaii late this week and will join our WGN team. Heading south of Carbondale Saturday. We are getting there a bit early in order to set up for our broadcast.
“My colleague and WGN-TV chief meteorologist Demetrius Ivory will be broadcasting from Cleveland, Mike Janssen, from Carbondale itself and Mike Lowe will be joining us from the Chicago area. We’re looking forward to working with our colleagues from Adler Planetarium as well. Again, our WGN TV coverage will begin at 1 PM Monday and continue live through 2:30 PM on April 8.
“A NOTEWORTHY SIDE BAR—As any of you who joined us in Carbondale, IL for the August 2017 solar eclipse know, the event took place in sweltering summer heat and stifling humidities. Temps approached 100, and heat indices were even higher.

“The upcoming eclipse Monday for those who will be viewing (or attempting to view) it from downstate Carbondale will be doing so in a much more comfortable environment with temps at eclipse time in the upper 60s and ultimate daytime highs in the low 70s—a far cry from the blistering environment in which the 2017 total solar eclipse there was viewed! Dew points Monday are predicted to be in the low 50s and heat indices in the upper 60s—VERY COMFORTABLE! Now, if any cloud coverage will just cooperate, we’re in for quite a time! Fingers and all outward extremities are crossed! Come on, Nature—help us out!”

Tom

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