The big day is nearly here, so is a forecast for cloud in the north, boo! What will happen and how is the weather looking for Friday morning here and for the path of totality.
One dayuntil Eclipse day and the sun is shining outside my window, clear blue skies. Pah! There is cloud in the forecast for me tomorrow and northern and south-eastern parts of the UK.
Some people have travelled to the Faeroe Islands, SW of Iceland to be in the totality path and they will be doing a sunshine dance to ward off the current cloud cover.
The forecast for the Faeroe Islands comes from the Danish Met service and shows frontal rain and cloud clearing on the Weather maps tab. (kl. is o’clock) http://www.dmi.dk/en/faeroeerne/vejret/vejrkort/
Here in the UK, we have 3 main zones and 2 minor areas in the forecast for Friday morning.
Fronts approaching from the NW overnight will throw cloud and damp weather over much of N.Ireland, Scotland, Cumbria and NE England. Chances of see the eclipse here are low due to the blanket of cloud but there still could be breaks so don’t give up hope completely. The wind will be a brisk westerly and so eastern parts of Britain should see the cloud breaking up to the lee of any hills and mountains. NE England, Eastern Scotland, especially near Tayside, and around the Moray Firth towards Inverness.
For southern Britain, when you get up there will be a lot of cloud about for south-eastern areas from the Wash across to the Bristol Channel. This cloud should thin and break quickly during the morning for most. So not a clear view but there should be more breaks as it gets towards 09:30 which is near the peak of the eclipse. Kent looks like keeping stubborn cloud flowing in from the north coast. For much of Wales, Cornwall and the Midlands, Yorkshire and NW England there could be sunshine. So the best chance of a clear view in this middle swathe
What is going to happen.
If you have some cloud free view of the sky, and something safe to view with you will see the moon move across the sun gradually and clear away again. Bear in mind the sun is quite small in the sky. There will be a gradual darkening but not a sudden pitch black. It only goes rather dark in the path of totality for the 2 mins or so, when the sun is completely blocked out (for Faeroe Islands). What the UK could experience is rather like an eerie twilight which even under the clouds in the north could still be noticeable. Observing birds, flowers, the wind and temperature is also intriguing.
For tomorrow if you are still hopeful for a view, remember don’t look at the sun directly. The Daily Record in Scotland and the Plymouth Herald have been offering Eclipse glasses today with their Thursday issue. You can use a pinhole in a bit of card and the image will project onto something 1meter away. You can use a open cardboard box as well as the pinhole image shows up inside the darkened box. Or just enjoy the strange eerie light and watch it online later.
Happy safe eclipse viewing. The next very large partial eclipse will be in 2026 for the UK
Send any solar filtered photos in of the partial eclipse or ordinary photos of you viewing it, by twitter or Facebook
And any questions or comment in the Netweather forum thread:
https://forum.netweather.tv/topic/80116-2015-march-20th-solar-eclipse/
Jo
