Maybe.
Tonight around midnight our time, the moon will be entirely in the earth's shadow.
A total lunar eclipse. During such periods, the moon often develops a red color, sometimes leading to the name "blood moon."
The big issue tonight will be clouds.....but don't give up yet!
The visible satellite image right before sunset shows the problem (see below). Unstable air with a lot of cumulus clouds moving into western Washington. Solid clouds on the western slopes and crests of the Cascades and Olympics.
But hope is not lost. There is a large clear zone east of the Cascades, and over the western lowlands, the cumulus clouds are scattered and MOVE, and thus the moon will come in and out.
What will things be like during the eclipse? The timing is shown below. The total eclipse will be from roughly 11:30 PM to 12:30 AM.
The cloud forecast of the UW WRF model for midnight suggests that some of you...even in the west, will see it!
I know I will be looking.....I love eclipses!
Finally, why does the moon look red during total eclipses?
The same reason the sun looks red when setting: light from the sun has to go through a lot of the atmosphere. Blue and green colors are scattered more than reds by atmospheric molecules. So those colors are lost, leaving the longer-wavelength reds.
Is the atmospheric river still on trac? Yakima farmers sure need the snow.
ReplyDeleteAre you still expecting the atmospheric river?
ReplyDeleteI did, and while I don't have any good pics of it to show, it was lovely to the naked eye. A rain band came through Bremerton just when totality approached, but cleared off a few minutes later.
ReplyDeleteI have a question about the full moon setting this morning though, well after the eclipse... what are those strange looking clouds? Pic taken around dawn from West Bremerton, looking directly over the Kitsap peninsula highlands ... happy to provide an EXIF unstripped version and moar detail to anyone who needs it to assess. https://kitsap.whigdev.com/upload/photos/2025/03/hhOgfnfB6qsYVnRUACCd_14_130c8ff34985817ebd7be236b44ffd82_image.jpg
Sure, there was a lunar eclipse last night and between rain bands I observed totality here in Bremerton, but then, at dawn, the exhausted full moon set, and gave me a fine picture of a KH instability over the Olympics. https://kitsap.whigdev.com/upload/photos/2025/03/vvftG9KzdWsDsYskPnW3_15_dbda0adb3f08862c0ad48076f67833e1_image.jpg
ReplyDeleteThis Pineapple Express seems to have lost its pineapples! It is only 47 degrees in Mill Creek at noon Saturday. Below the average. What happened to that Hawaiian influence?
ReplyDeleteNot sure if today’s front qualified as an AR but it was certainly an unusually cold and rainy morning around Bellingham by modern mid-March standards. In fact, 3/15 was the rainiest day of the winter at KBLI.
ReplyDelete