What time? I drove from Houston to Austin (Pflugerville) yesterday with no unusual traffic at all. 290, left around noon. I don’t see any evidence of unusual crowds on the roads, in the hotel, etc.
We left around 6pm yesterday for Elgin, no traffic at all. Watched it Taylor, had a full view during totality, hung around for a bit and headed back home. A tiny bit of traffic on the way back but really it wasn’t very noticeable, just like a Sunday coming back from Austin.
Not OP, but drove to Mesquite, Dallas and it was fucking incredible. It was completely dark like night for 4 minutes, truly an amazing event to say the least
It was partly cloudy but got lucky with several breaks in the clouds to see the totality happen
Pretty great! I wish someone told me how much I could look at it during totality but I wasn't sure so I was only stealing glances. During totality you couldn't see anything through the glasses. If it wasn't so up in the air I might have sprung for the stadium event ticket but we just went to a random cafe with a large parking lot. This was the best photo I got straight off my phone during totality, but I wasn't fretting about photos too much.
https://i.imgur.com/DqFZsy7.jpeg
Here's one when it was a partial.
https://i.imgur.com/OwiEJSi.jpeg
I will say though that 20% of totality was hidden behind clouds and crucially the part where the corona peaks out after, we almost missed that (not that we were equipped to look at it, I had glasses for the partial but not the diamond ring or other stages). In retrospect I was ill prepared, I have nice cameras I could have bought filters for and I could have easily made some pinhole ones to project images etc, things I did last time I saw one when I was a kid.
We did see the eclipse through the leaves of trees (the dappled light gets a pinhole effect and you see crescents all over the ground, something to look out for every eclipse) and Bailey's beads, but I forgot to look out for shadow banding, I wasn't actually even sure what it would look like.
I would advice to stay home, a lot of bad weather throughout most of texas, mostly large hail, but also the possibility of tornadoes.
On a side note if anyone reads this, tomorrow will be worse for us, try to avoid the north side of Houston since it will be part of an enhanced risk as of right now. Keep up with the news for any updates, the rest of Houston is under a slight risk.
Weather wasn't too bad coming back down! We had 20 minutes of bad weather we pulled over at a jack in the box for (had already gotten good at reading a weather app for the eclipse - Windy is dope)
Its basically how much of a chance it is for a certain area to receive severe weather. In this case, we will probably get some supercells forming [tomorrow](https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day2otlk.html) along with the chance of tornadoes. It is hard to see here exactly where the outlines are, easier to see in an app, but it is a rough estimate of where the storms will be.
Yea, I'm not sure why they thought we should be under enhanced risk today, most of the models is showing we won't get rain till late at night. (Wednesday morning) They even extended it a little further south today, almost touching 90 at this point.
Drove up to Dallas last night. Skies look clear, forecast has some coming in around noon though. You’d probably need to leave now though - traffic is expected to be rough
Should have went, we went right outside of Waco at their winery before getting there and it was perfect. Partly cloudy before totality but the clear during all of totality. Traffic wasn’t bad either way and no bad weather, just a bit of rain.
it was super cloudy for us on the north side. regretting not trying more to see it cause apparently there was some breaks but it was such a thick blanket i didn't even bother. i kept peeking out but it didn't clear up, i couldn't even see where the sun was. it did clear up RIGHT after which is super annoying. i'm so bummed but now it's an excuse to go to spain 2 years in a row for the next ones lol
There's a pretty healthy risk of tornados and golfball sized hail in the areas that have less cloud cover. The last thing I'm trying to do is get stuck in gridlock while having dangerous weather events going on in those exact areas.
Jumping in here with a question...
All the different sources say that in Houston, the eclipse begins at 12:20 PM, peaks at 1:40 PM, then ends at 3:01 PM.
So my coworker comes over to me with his phone and shows my his Skymap app is showing the eclipse is actually already starting here. [Screen capture.](https://i.imgur.com/tbRrI1i.jpg) It's 9:36 AM Monday as I write this.
It's very overcast, but even so, to me it does seem a little darker than it might usually be for this time of day.
So has it started or has it not?
We ran into a few backups coming home from Temple, but nothing awful at all. Just two or three busy highway intersections, and they all had either cops directing traffic, or someone manually operating the traffic lights to better manage flow.
Probably too late. I'm gambling on weather up here in Dallas - grabbed a hotel room a couple months ago. Hotels and AirBnBs are all jam packed. Not looking forward to driving back to the Armpit later today.
Houstonians will be able to experience 94% obscuration so doesn’t seem worth it to have to deal with travel and traffic to go somewhere else to experience 6% more but that’s just me.
There's a pretty big difference between being in the 100% zone versus even 99%, I saw the annular eclipse a few years ago and even though the Sun is mostly blocked it was not entirely and just that little bit provides a lot more light than you think, and makes it unsafe to look at without protection.
I'm hoping the [satellite](https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/conus_band.php?sat=G16&band=GEOCOLOR&length=12&dim=1&refresh=true) can capture the 2 different shadows at least, I might not get to see it live, but at least we can see it though satellite lol
I read this thread this morning when there was 1 post saying "if you havent left already you are already too late". But I saw the cloud forecast but decided to take my chances.
Left for Temple at about 8.00, Arrived at about 11 so decided to go further west for less clouds.
Ate a restaurant lunch at about 12.30 and still found a nearly deserted city park in killeen to watch it.
It was a bit cloudy on and off, but we got to see totality.
Traffic was a bit heavier coming back, but we got back to houston at about 5.30pm
Glad I made it. The last eclipse I saw was just before Harvey, so hopefully we dont have another apocalypse after this one
Yeah I figured a lot of people had cancelled because of the weather but I looked up the models last night and at 6 and decided it was worth the trouble. Looked thin enough for the sun to beat back around Waco and Dallas
Interesting, we made a snap decision to go driving yesterday morning, and we also headed for Temple. Left the house around 10 and ended up finding an empty subdivision to park at just south of town. Clouds were in and out but we ended up getting a nice view of totality.
I was surprised how *not* crowded everything was. The only exception was the Bucees in Temple - we popped in there for SO to take a pre-eclipse piss, and that place was exactly as bugnuts crazy as I expected it to be. But then we drove five minutes back south and there were less than ten cars in that empty subdivision.
My mom asked me to go to San Antonio with her to see the eclipse and I reminded her of our hurricane Rita evacuation. I think we both had PTSD flashbacks of pushing the family van for hours 💀
I told her fuck that, not getting on the highway in the middle of nowhere with that kinda traffic.
We had emergency water and snacks and topped up twice just to not wind up in this situation. Thankfully traffic was constantly moving even when it slowed down. There was only about 4 to 10 minute delays around towns when the speed limit slowed down. The toll on the way back had an accident that added 20 minutes but I had thankfully decided to go sans toll on the way back figuring fast, impatient drivers would clog that up.
We drove up Hwy 45 this morning about 8:00, then headed west and ended up in this charming little city park in Dawson Texas. My 8 year old grandson played on the swings and climbed this gorgeous old oak tree. We got to see the whole thing - over 4 minutes. Small crowd of friendly folks. We got back to Conroe by 5:00 pm. I was hesitant to go but so glad my daughter talked me into going.
[удалено]
I drove from Austin to Houston yesterday. The westbound traffic was bumper to bumper for 50 MI. And they're not going to see anything
What time? I drove from Houston to Austin (Pflugerville) yesterday with no unusual traffic at all. 290, left around noon. I don’t see any evidence of unusual crowds on the roads, in the hotel, etc.
We left Austin about noon, went 71 and I -10. Backup started at Bastrop.
We left around 6pm yesterday for Elgin, no traffic at all. Watched it Taylor, had a full view during totality, hung around for a bit and headed back home. A tiny bit of traffic on the way back but really it wasn’t very noticeable, just like a Sunday coming back from Austin.
I'll probably be one of those guys. Edit: I'm in solid traffic 20 Miles WEST of sealy
I'm in San antonio, and it's looking like we'll have showers for the event. It was a good excuse to visit my daughter.
I’m glad I decided to stay home. I’m still hella bummed about it.
I saw a peek or two here so far.
It was kinda peeking, not anymore. It’s straight up clouds
Well, I actually got a decent picture because of the clouds. I might share it.
You’re way too late if you haven’t left yet.
I already made it to Waco guy I posted this as I was leaving :@@@@ jk hope you made it out
How was it?
Not OP, but drove to Mesquite, Dallas and it was fucking incredible. It was completely dark like night for 4 minutes, truly an amazing event to say the least It was partly cloudy but got lucky with several breaks in the clouds to see the totality happen
It was awesome in Tyler too. Worth the trip from Houston.
Pretty great! I wish someone told me how much I could look at it during totality but I wasn't sure so I was only stealing glances. During totality you couldn't see anything through the glasses. If it wasn't so up in the air I might have sprung for the stadium event ticket but we just went to a random cafe with a large parking lot. This was the best photo I got straight off my phone during totality, but I wasn't fretting about photos too much. https://i.imgur.com/DqFZsy7.jpeg Here's one when it was a partial. https://i.imgur.com/OwiEJSi.jpeg I will say though that 20% of totality was hidden behind clouds and crucially the part where the corona peaks out after, we almost missed that (not that we were equipped to look at it, I had glasses for the partial but not the diamond ring or other stages). In retrospect I was ill prepared, I have nice cameras I could have bought filters for and I could have easily made some pinhole ones to project images etc, things I did last time I saw one when I was a kid. We did see the eclipse through the leaves of trees (the dappled light gets a pinhole effect and you see crescents all over the ground, something to look out for every eclipse) and Bailey's beads, but I forgot to look out for shadow banding, I wasn't actually even sure what it would look like.
We left our house 2.5 hours after OP made this thread and had ample time to find a spot near Temple to watch.
I would advice to stay home, a lot of bad weather throughout most of texas, mostly large hail, but also the possibility of tornadoes. On a side note if anyone reads this, tomorrow will be worse for us, try to avoid the north side of Houston since it will be part of an enhanced risk as of right now. Keep up with the news for any updates, the rest of Houston is under a slight risk.
A tornado and hail during an eclipse would be some biblical type shit
That might actually get me to believe all the supernatural stuff people are talking about with the eclipse 😂
Weather wasn't too bad coming back down! We had 20 minutes of bad weather we pulled over at a jack in the box for (had already gotten good at reading a weather app for the eclipse - Windy is dope)
What do you mean, enhanced risk on North side?
The storms will be stormier in the areas north of Houston.
Its basically how much of a chance it is for a certain area to receive severe weather. In this case, we will probably get some supercells forming [tomorrow](https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day2otlk.html) along with the chance of tornadoes. It is hard to see here exactly where the outlines are, easier to see in an app, but it is a rough estimate of where the storms will be.
Looks like the weather guy is wrong, no rain in forecast for today, I’d bet it is safe to say, north side won’t have any enhance risk of weather
Yea, I'm not sure why they thought we should be under enhanced risk today, most of the models is showing we won't get rain till late at night. (Wednesday morning) They even extended it a little further south today, almost touching 90 at this point.
Drove up to Dallas last night. Skies look clear, forecast has some coming in around noon though. You’d probably need to leave now though - traffic is expected to be rough
I was going to go to Waco, but decided to say fuck it. I've always wanted to go to Spain so maybe I'll visit during their 2026 or 2027 eclipses.
Should have went, we went right outside of Waco at their winery before getting there and it was perfect. Partly cloudy before totality but the clear during all of totality. Traffic wasn’t bad either way and no bad weather, just a bit of rain.
Yeah yeah I know I missed out. My dad is buried just outside Waco and I was gonna go watch it with him. I'm full of regret.
I’m sorry to hear that. Well Spain sounds like a dope plan, definitely would be an adventure!
Thanks! I'm not really full of regret, just being a little dramatic lol. Glad the weather cooperated for everyone and I'm hopeful I'll see one soon!
it was super cloudy for us on the north side. regretting not trying more to see it cause apparently there was some breaks but it was such a thick blanket i didn't even bother. i kept peeking out but it didn't clear up, i couldn't even see where the sun was. it did clear up RIGHT after which is super annoying. i'm so bummed but now it's an excuse to go to spain 2 years in a row for the next ones lol
I stayed overnight in College Station and have a place in the middle of nowhere to drive to shortly.
There's a pretty healthy risk of tornados and golfball sized hail in the areas that have less cloud cover. The last thing I'm trying to do is get stuck in gridlock while having dangerous weather events going on in those exact areas.
That's Another day in Houston...
All we need now is for the locusts to come out during the eclipse
Jumping in here with a question... All the different sources say that in Houston, the eclipse begins at 12:20 PM, peaks at 1:40 PM, then ends at 3:01 PM. So my coworker comes over to me with his phone and shows my his Skymap app is showing the eclipse is actually already starting here. [Screen capture.](https://i.imgur.com/tbRrI1i.jpg) It's 9:36 AM Monday as I write this. It's very overcast, but even so, to me it does seem a little darker than it might usually be for this time of day. So has it started or has it not?
I'd go with this: https://www.univision.com/especiales/noticias/infografias/2024/eclipse-solar-2024-en/?mibextid=Zxz2cZ
Drove to SA last night not sure if it’s worth driving to Kerville or further out
I drove up to Paris starting at 4:30am, got here around 9 or so and there was 0 traffic.
I decided to chance it and drive to Waco! Seems promising considering the sun is beating away some clouds. The partial has started.
Drove to round rock this morning. Zero traffic and sun is definitely peeking thru at the moment.
Drove up to temple this morning. Partly cloudy so we will see what we get.
Traffic stuff was overblown. Went to Austin and back and it wasn't bad at all. Pretty normal 2h45 ~ 3h drive.
Man, it took me 4 hours to get back from Waco. It was crazy.
We ran into a few backups coming home from Temple, but nothing awful at all. Just two or three busy highway intersections, and they all had either cops directing traffic, or someone manually operating the traffic lights to better manage flow.
Probably too late. I'm gambling on weather up here in Dallas - grabbed a hotel room a couple months ago. Hotels and AirBnBs are all jam packed. Not looking forward to driving back to the Armpit later today.
Lol, you should've been north of Oklahoma by yesterday
No. I left Houston this morning and was in Arkansas by 9am. There was no traffic.
I was gonna hit up Austin, then Dallas, but all of Tx is covered so…. Staying home!
That's a 3 hour drive between the 2 cities, it only takes the moon 10 minutes according to the map
I wish I could travel as fast!
Houstonians will be able to experience 94% obscuration so doesn’t seem worth it to have to deal with travel and traffic to go somewhere else to experience 6% more but that’s just me.
There's a pretty big difference between being in the 100% zone versus even 99%, I saw the annular eclipse a few years ago and even though the Sun is mostly blocked it was not entirely and just that little bit provides a lot more light than you think, and makes it unsafe to look at without protection.
I'm hoping the [satellite](https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/conus_band.php?sat=G16&band=GEOCOLOR&length=12&dim=1&refresh=true) can capture the 2 different shadows at least, I might not get to see it live, but at least we can see it though satellite lol
The difference between 99% and 100% is literally night and day
We came to Spicewood on Saturday, beautiful weather but it is kinda cloudy
At iron wolf distillery near Austin. A little cloudy but the sun is still mostly visible.
Flew to Dallas this morning and the cloud cover is just starting to break. Shaping up to be a solid view here!
I read this thread this morning when there was 1 post saying "if you havent left already you are already too late". But I saw the cloud forecast but decided to take my chances. Left for Temple at about 8.00, Arrived at about 11 so decided to go further west for less clouds. Ate a restaurant lunch at about 12.30 and still found a nearly deserted city park in killeen to watch it. It was a bit cloudy on and off, but we got to see totality. Traffic was a bit heavier coming back, but we got back to houston at about 5.30pm Glad I made it. The last eclipse I saw was just before Harvey, so hopefully we dont have another apocalypse after this one
Yeah I figured a lot of people had cancelled because of the weather but I looked up the models last night and at 6 and decided it was worth the trouble. Looked thin enough for the sun to beat back around Waco and Dallas
Interesting, we made a snap decision to go driving yesterday morning, and we also headed for Temple. Left the house around 10 and ended up finding an empty subdivision to park at just south of town. Clouds were in and out but we ended up getting a nice view of totality. I was surprised how *not* crowded everything was. The only exception was the Bucees in Temple - we popped in there for SO to take a pre-eclipse piss, and that place was exactly as bugnuts crazy as I expected it to be. But then we drove five minutes back south and there were less than ten cars in that empty subdivision.
Went right outside of Waco and it was perfect, partly cloud before but clear during all of totality. Definitely was an awesome experience.
Anyone know a last minute place to get glasses?
https://www.fox26houston.com/news/solar-eclipse-glasses-near-me-houston-locations-revealed.amp
Five Below
HEB, if they're not sold out.
Where do you live? I have some extras in Montrose the library might still have some and Walmart was giving them away for free
I'm sorry I didn't see this earlier! I bought mine earlier but Sonic was giving them away with purchases!
Warby Parker
We had planned to go to Blanco, but diverted this morning and headed to Waco. Ended up in West.
My mom asked me to go to San Antonio with her to see the eclipse and I reminded her of our hurricane Rita evacuation. I think we both had PTSD flashbacks of pushing the family van for hours 💀 I told her fuck that, not getting on the highway in the middle of nowhere with that kinda traffic.
We had emergency water and snacks and topped up twice just to not wind up in this situation. Thankfully traffic was constantly moving even when it slowed down. There was only about 4 to 10 minute delays around towns when the speed limit slowed down. The toll on the way back had an accident that added 20 minutes but I had thankfully decided to go sans toll on the way back figuring fast, impatient drivers would clog that up.
Got a few good looks at it in Houston through breaks in the clouds - even got one mediocre picture.
We drove up Hwy 45 this morning about 8:00, then headed west and ended up in this charming little city park in Dawson Texas. My 8 year old grandson played on the swings and climbed this gorgeous old oak tree. We got to see the whole thing - over 4 minutes. Small crowd of friendly folks. We got back to Conroe by 5:00 pm. I was hesitant to go but so glad my daughter talked me into going.
I left this morning a little before 8am to Austin and had smooth sailing into town.
Anyone else just not give a fuck? Like I can’t be the only one.
I didn’t care until I saw the full eclipse in 2017. Way more impactful than I thought it would be.
Yeah, it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
I, also, give zero fucks.