January 20, 2019

You May Be Able to See the Lunar Eclipse Tonight!

There are a lot of folks that REALLY want to see our spectacular lunar eclipse tonight.   And it will not be just any lunar eclipse, but a BLOOD WOLF SUPER TOTAL Lunar Eclipse.

It doesn't get much better than that!

Fortunately, the situation appears more favorable than last night, particularly if you live in NW Washington--and perhaps as far south as Seattle.

The 4 PM visible satellite image (below) shows a zone of clearing from Bellingham across the northern Olympic Peninsula.  Clearly over the Kitsap Peninsula and the northern Olympic coast.  Partly cloud over Seattle. Really good up in southern BC.


The clouds have thinning out a bit over Seattle during the past few hours, something evident from the Seattle Space Needle Pano Cam...particularly to the west (see below).


The high-resolution WRF model cloud forecast for 9 PM tonight is consistent with what is occurring this afternoon.  NW WA is the best, but there could well be enough breaks over Seattle to get a glimpse.  Not so good in much of Oregon and SE Washington. 

Fingers crossed.



20 comments:

  1. Looking great here in North Kitsap near Kingston. A mostly clear sky.

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  2. In Tacoma @ 7pm, not a cloud to be seen. Hope it holds.

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  3. Whoopee, it's clear here now at Northgate yay!

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  4. Crystal clear in Bham. Looking good!

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  5. Have an unbelievable unobstructed view of the whole process in Ferndale tonight. It really is remarkable. Captivating. Looking due east from the top of Thornton hill. Amazing how distinct the colors are to the naked eye. Prepped my 10 yr old twins by sharing the info from this blog. Not often one gets to see something like this as described. They were blown away. Thank you for helping me educate the kids, Cliff!

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  6. I saw it--super cool!

    People were coming out of PCC to admire it and a couple howled at the moon just for fun. Some were hanging off their front porches straining to look up and in the moon's direction.

    An awesome escape reminding us of the big picture in the face of life's trifling annoyances. Thanks for the heads up, Cliff.

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  7. Drove up to Samish Bay. _COLD_ but gorgeous.

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  8. My flat earther friend was trying to rationalize the eclipse. Saying it can’t be earths shadow. I said “you can search through thousands of years of eclipse history you will never find a lunar eclipse that’s not a full moon

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  9. Perfect viewing at Port Angeles - just perfect and still clear and bright at 6:30AM. What a dandy.

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  10. In Olympia I was able to observe the eclipse from the start through totality with a brief cloudy interruption about 8:00 to 8:30 pm.

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    1. It was solid cloud cover south of Olympia. You couldn't even see the glow of the moon...

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  11. Wow, that was fantastic. In many ways every bit as good as the solar eclipse from August 2017. Nice to have much more time to enjoy the process. What would’ve been really epic was to be able to be on the surface of the moon looking back at the earth. There would be a red annulus around the earth. I hope some enterprising space company sends a probe with a camera up there soon so we can begin to capture some of these amazing images.

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  12. Watched it in clear, starlit skies from the top of Bell Hill near Sequim with near zero light pollution. Great show!

    Viewed through a pair of images-stabilizing binoculars, the moon seemed to be in my backyard. It wasn't as red as I'd expected, but clearly tinted that way. Love the way the stars near the moon become so much brighter during eclipse.

    A real treat to have such crystal skies for the eclipse, and this was after being stuck inside a foggy and discouraging cloud for most of the day (cloud bases were below our 1000' elevation). Thankfully everything went clear in mid-afternoon and stayed that way.

    Interestingly, the coyotes didn't howl until about half the lighted disk was revealed during the back half of the eclipse. Total silence leading up to and during the rest of the eclipse.

    I suppose they were celebrating the return of the Wolf moon.

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  13. Moon disappeared about 6:30 looking east over Sinclair Inlet from Bremerton, we were prepared for disappointment. Voila - emerged a little later and we saw the whole thing. Orion was also visible - rare to see so many stars given the light pollution. Perhaps 10 minutes of a very light cloud toward the end of the eclipse. Hard to imagine better viewing.

    We were surprised as it reached its peak and started out of it. The red moon (more copper colored) was capped by a blueish disk. Anyway an outstanding astronomy show.

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  14. Shorty said...
    My flat earther friend was trying to rationalize the eclipse.

    How do "flat earthers" explain day and night?

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  15. West of Chehalis, ~1200' crystal clear viewing, surprisingly little moisture haze for the entirely of the event. I've had darker nights with less haze when we hit temps in the teens... but considering the forecast, the view was stellar.

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  16. Low clouds hung over Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood until about 5PM Sunday followed by rapid clearing from the west. By 7PM, the moon was fully visible and remained so for almost the entire duration of the partial and total phases. A few clouds from time to time but they had a negligible effect on the experience. The best lunar eclipse from my neighborhood in many years.

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  17. Excellent post, I kept thinking I had waited too late and we were coming out of totality.

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