The exciting thing about the April 8 eclipse is that it’s passing through and near a lot of populated places in the United States. It’s a lot like the eclipse in 2017 (where I captured the data for the image above), except it passes through a different array of cities and totality will last a bit longer than the one in 2017. Here’s a map from NASA showing the path for the April 2024 eclipse.
Note the dark-shaded path of totality. This is the path that the moon’s umbra, or complete shadow, will trace over the earth. These are the regions that will experience a total eclipse, and this is the path that you want to be in. Let me state very clearly - There is a massive difference between a partial eclipse and a total eclipse. If you are near the path of totality but not in the path of totality, you will only experience a partial eclipse.
If a partial eclipse is like watching your kid play Tecmo baseball on Nintendo, a total eclipse is like playing in game 7 of the World Series. They’re completely different experiences.
In a partial eclipse, when the moon partly blocks the sun, you…
Partial phase of the 2017 eclipse, photo through a solar filter
In a total eclipse, where the moon completely blocks the sun, you…
Composite of the August 21, 2017 eclipse totality showing the corona and earthshine on the moon, no filter needed
Just to be perfectly clear about what we’re talking about - a total solar eclipse is the most incredible natural spectacle I have ever beheld. 2nd place isn’t even close. So, hopefully I’ve convinced you to do what you can to get into the path of totality, preferably in a spot where the sky is expected to be clear.
So where should you try to get to? Not everywhere in the ~60 mile wide path will have the same experience.
Get well into the path rather than right on the edge. The closer you are to the centerline, the longer totality will last, and the darker the sky will get. The National Solar Observatory has a very handy website that includes a map that allows you to click on a location and see exactly when totality starts and ends, and how long it will last. On the centerline, totality will range from just over 4 minutes and 20 seconds in most of Texas to around 3 minutes and 30 seconds once it reaches Maine. It’s probably worth a little travel to get close to the centerline, especially if you’re right on the edge of it.
This eclipse is happening in April, which means weather is likely to have an impact. An eclipse isn’t particularly interesting if it’s obscured by clouds. You can’t control the weather, but you can plan around it. There are two phases to this - climatological and short-range forecasting.
We know where the eclipse is going to be, and we know what the historical weather has been along those routes. Average climate data can tell us far in advance where the dice are weighted in our favor. For instance, in Dallas, it’s historically clear a little over 40% of the time in April, mostly clear or clear at least 50% of the time. Figure based on this that in Dallas, you’re probably looking at a little better than 50% chance that the weather will allow you to view the eclipse.
On the other hand, in Millinocket, Maine in April it’s clear just 20% of days, clear or mostly clear just 30% of days. So a viewer in Maine is substantially more likely to be dealing with clouds than one in Dallas, and have something closer to a 1-in-3 chance of having a clear view of the eclipse day-of.
Obviously, this isn’t a slam dunk. It could be cloudy in Dallas and clear as a bell in Maine on April 8 - that’s just the nature of weather and statistics. So forecasting becomes important.
A few days ahead of the eclipse, forecasting models should have some idea of where clouds are likely to develop during the eclipse. Check out the NWS Graphical Forecast to see sky cover predictions a few days out. Hopefully, you have a place that’s totally in the clear day of, but if you need to check short-range predictions, use a tool like the High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) forecasts to see what clouds are expected to be 5-15 hours in advance.
If you’re wanting to give yourself the best possible chance of seeing the eclipse, have plans to fly to one of a few different locations, pick one a few days ahead based on the forecast, and then try to have some flexibility to drive a little ways day-of. Obviously not everyone has that sort of flexibility, but this is the best way to make sure you’re not looking at very dark clouds overhead on April 8.
The first note for people who are in the path of totality - take off your solar glasses and solar filters during totality (and only during totality - put them back on as totality ends). If you wear solar glasses during totality, you’ll miss what’s possibly the most incredible sight you’ve ever seen.
My oldest sporting a pair of reputable cardboard eclipse glasses in 2017
The only safe way to directly observe a partial eclipse (or view a total eclipse during the partial phases - before and after totality) is through appropriate solar filter material. Failure to do this can result in eye damage. Make sure you get filters/viewers/glasses from a reputable source. Thousand Oaks Optical would be one example - that’s where I’m getting solar filters for viewing and for photography. Look for viewers that comply with the ISO 12312-2 standard. Regular sunglasses, even especially dark ones are not adequate for direct solar viewing. Use these solar filters until the entire photosphere (the bright part of the sun’s surface) is completely obscured by the moon.
Bailey’s Beads - get ready to take those glasses off
If you’re in the path of totality, once the last little bit of the photosphere has passed behind the moon (you’re past the “Bailey’s Beads” phase shown above), that is when you should take off your glasses. At this point, you’ll be able to see the sun’s corona.
The inner corona and prominences during totality in the 2017 eclipse
Keep an eye on the time - put your glasses back on immediately as the photosphere comes back into view on the other side of the moon. There are some helpful apps out there, some of which will call out instructions about when to take your glasses off and put your glasses on again based on your location.
If you don’t have access to solar filters, there are any number of techniques to indirectly view the partially eclipsed sun. Again, don’t bother with these during totality - just look at the corona directly during that phase.
Using a card with a pinhole to project the partially eclipsed sun onto a piece of white paper.
During totality, having a set of binoculars on-hand to view the corona and prominences close-up can be really cool. Just make sure you move them away from your eyes before the sun comes back out, after which point you’ll need to put the filters back on them.
If you’re using a camera or telescope or binoculars to direclty view the eclipse, any time it’s a partial eclipse, you must have a proper solar filter as the first optical element of your setup. In other words, the filter has to be on the front of the lens. If you put it behind the lens or on the eyepiece, you’ll likely melt the filter as well as rapidly burn a literal hole in your retina as the lens concentrates the powerful sunlight to a single point. Even if you use live view on your camera or have a mirrorless camera that shows a video feed rather than providing a direct optical path from the lens to your eye (which is a good practice for protecting your eyesight) you’ll burn through your shutter, scorch your sensor, melt your iris blades, or otherwise damage your camera and/or lens. Also note that a dark regular ND filter may not block the UV and infrared spectra that a proper solar filter would, which could allow invisible but extremely dangerous energy into your eye or equipment.
If you’re in a place that’s nicely in the path, count yourself lucky.
If you live in a population center not far from the path, I’d argue it’s worth a trip. But be prepared for crowds. Plan a spot ahead of time. Give yourself plenty of time to get to your target destination on the path. And be ready for massive traffic jams on the way back. The eclipse ends at the same time for everyone. For reference, in 2017 it took over 8 hours to travel from Glendo, WY to Denver, CO after the eclipse - a trip which would normally just take 3 hours. Start the day with a full tank of gas, bring snacks, and set your expectations appropriately. Or perhaps make a plan to camp out somewhere and wait to leave until the next day. Despite being caught in a massive traffic jam with half of Denver trying to get back on I-25, I can say that it was undoubtedly worth dealing with the traffic.
Southbound I-25 from Glendo, WY heading to Denver after the August 21, 2017 eclipse
Think about where people in your vicinity will be traveling. As an example, I expect that major thoroughfares from Houston towards the path will experience traffic like this. I-45 SB from Ennis, TX will likely be gridlocked, as will EB US-290 returning from near Austin and possibly EB I-10 from west of San Antonio. Backroads might not be so bad, but they’re also smaller and not immune to clogging. If you’ve been stuck in hurricane evacuation traffic, that’s probably what you should prepare for. Similarly, in the northeast, I expect that roads from the major metro areas like NY and Boston which are a “day trip” from the path will very likely be clogged with huge numbers of people.
I’ve got an evolvoing blog post up on my photography website blog about photographing a total eclipse in the coming days. If this is your first time to see a total eclipse, consider whether it’s worth spending time during those precious 3-4 minutes of totality futzing with a camera. My suggestion would be that unless you’re really passionate about the photography thing, it’s best to just enjoy the moment. Total eclipses are very dynamic events, require somewhat specialized equipment to photograph well, and if you make it about photography you stand to miss out on (or dilute) what should be an incredible experience. That said, I didn’t follow this sound advice in 2017 and in retrospect I’m happy with that choice, but I’m also a huge photography nerd who enjoys highly technical challenges and I invested time putting together a plan that automated a lot to let me be very hands-off my photography gear during totality. I think for most people, leaving the camera in the bag or just pulling it out a few seconds to shoot a couple of shots on some auto mode is pretty good advice.
What I like best about a total eclipse is what it tells us about the universe. The total eclipses we experience are incredibly unlikely. The sun is over 865,000 miles in diameter - more than 3x larger than the distance from the earth to the moon. The moon, by comparison, is just 2,159 miles in diameter - less than 0.25% the diameter of the sun. Then there’s the distance to each of these heavenly bodies. The distance to the sun ranges between 91.4M to 94.5M miles, and to the moon between about 218,000 and 248,000 miles.
It just so happens that these distances mean that the moon (which is much smaller but much closer) is very similar in its apparent size in the sky compared to the sun - sometimes slightly larger, and sometimes slightly smaller. This means that when the moon happens to pass in front of the sun on an occasion when it’s slightly larger in apparent size, its shadow just barely reaches all the way to the earth, tracing a path no wider than about 100 miles across the globe.
Then, there’s the orbit. The moon’s orbital plane is a bit skewed from the sun’s orbital plane. This means that we don’t get an eclipse every month, but instead only a couple of times a year when the orbits line up, and of those, total eclipses only happen about once every 18 months. This also means that eclipse paths tend to be scattered all over the earth - any given location on the earth will experience a total eclipse on average once every ~375 years.
What this all adds up to is that this incredibly unlikely combination of sizes, distances, and orbits give us this very rare and extremely unlikely phenomenon. The kicker, though, is that it also happens to be beautiful. I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s the most incredible natural phenomena I’ve ever beheld. And that’s where the rub for me is. There’s no reason that the moon getting in the way of the sun should be some magnificently beautiful spectacle in and of itself. But it is. And for me, that tells me that the unlikely combination of sizes, distances, and orbits have a purpose and design behind them, to tell us something of the goodness and majesty of the One who created them and put them in place.
For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.
Romans 1:20 (CSB)
And for those who have gotten this far - back in 2017, I traveled to Glendo, Wyoming to experience the total solar eclipse with my father, my oldest daughter, and a good family friend. We pointed one of our video cameras at ourselves to capture our reaction to this spectacle, which was a new experience for all of us. Here is that video.
Here are some thoughts I came away with.
Overall I thought Foulkes and McKee came across as the strongest candidates.
I recall a Ted tweet soliciting questions. I wish I had considered responding. Some things I would have found interesting:
He must increase, but I must decrease.
On Sunday morning at Grace Harbor Church, Kevin preached a sermon from John 3:22-36, in which John the Baptist provides a beautiful model of humbly living for Christ’s glory. It was a very helpful reminder in a world that is driven so much by comparison, competition, and a desire for self-affirmation.
]]>A penny saved is only a penny earned if you would have spent it in the first place, otherwise it’s just a penny not spent. - Me
Since 2019, my family hasn’t spent much on travel. That’s not to say that we haven’t traveled. We’ve actually traveled quite a bit - several trips to Texas to see grandparents, a weekend adventure with an old college buddy of mine going down technical slot canyons and hiking in the Utah backcountry, and a family trip to Arizona and Utah over a week back in October 2021 to see Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Grand Canyon National Parks, in addition to a few more local trips around New England.
It used to be any time that we planned a trip with air travel, it was going to be at least $1000 - and probably more like $2000 - for tickets. That’s just life as a family of 6. But back in 2019, my buddy who I go with on yearly-ish outdoor adventures opened my eyes to the world of credit card churning. Since then, for all these trips we’ve taken (four full family trips by air plus a handful of individual trips), we’ve spent more like $1000 on airfare in total - for all the trips combined. And if I was really diligent about things, I’m pretty confident I could have gotten that number even lower.
So what is credit card churning? In short, it’s the practice of regularly signing up for new credit cards to get their sign-up bonuses. It’s a great way to get airline miles and hotel points that go far beyond the 1-2% that many cards offer per dollar spent. It takes a bit of work, but it can definitely be worthwhile.
I have several questions I think someone should be able to answer “yes” to before I’d suggest they consider credit card churning:
There are four major factors to consider in deciding whether a signup bonus is worthwhile-
If these four factors tell you that the bonus is worth it, and you answered yes to the first 4 questions of whether or not you should be churning, then it’s probably a good idea to sign up for the card.
There’s no universal answer for this, and because sign-up bonuses regularly change along with bank policies for taking advantage of them, it’s good to do some research into the current state of affairs. The Points Guy is a helpful resource. The Churn, Baby, Churn! subreddit is also full of helpful information. It’s easy to let analysis paralysis stop you from moving forward at all. Don’t let that happen, but do take a look at these few tidbits that will hopefully help you avoid major blunders that could lock you out of good opportunities.
These are some cards with bonuses that I’ve found valuable. For full transparency, the links I’m posting here are referral links that will give me points when somone uses them to sign up. My hope is that if you’ve found the info in this post useful, you’ll know whether it’s a good choice for you to sign up for a card, and if you do, me getting points is just icing on the cake. Note that card benefits change regularly and I’m not updating this post as they do, so do your own research.
Hopefully now you have some idea of what credit card churning is and whether it’s something that could save you money or make it easier for you and your family to travel. I’ve tried to hit the major points to help you answer those questions, but there are a lot of things I haven’t covered. Definitely check out some of the links I’ve included if you want to learn more.
]]>Towards the end of November in Rhode Island as people headed indoors, Delta continued its spread and Omicron started to quickly take hold (really taking over through December). This led to a precipitous rise in cases, hospitalizations, and (sadly) deaths in December 2021. That month, there were 146 COVID-19 deaths in RI. The RI Department of Health reports COVID deaths, along with the monthly breakdown of deaths by age and monthly totals for breakthrough deaths (COVID deaths of people who have received two vaccine doses). They also report weekly vaccination data - including vax rates - broken down by age, which opens up the ability to perform a base rate analysis of COVID deaths for a given month.
Of the 146 COVID deaths in December 2021, 56 of those were reported to be breakthrough deaths (deaths of people who have had at least two vaccine doses), leaving 90 that I classified as “unvaccinated”.
The first step of my analysis involved calculating the base rates for each age group that deaths were reported in. If the vaccines were to have no bearing on whether someone dies of COVID, then you would expect the breakdown of deaths to match the vaccine prevalence (i.e., if 100 people were to die of COVID in an age group that was 70% vaccinated, and vaccines have no relationship to COVID deaths, then you would expect for about 70 of the deaths to be vaccinated people and 30 to be unvaccinated).
For each age group, I figured the ratio of COVID deaths for that age range that one would expect under this “no effect” assumption given the vaccine rate reported for that age group. It’s important to note here that the vaccination rates reported by RIDoH appear to be unrealistically high. I suspect this is in part because of inaccurate counting and individual attribution, and also because RIDoH uses population distribution data from 2018 for their rate calculations. For instance, RIDoH reports vaccination rates for people age 70-79 which would mean 99% of this group is vaccinated. While I suspect in our state the rate is very high for that age group (>90% doesn’t seem unreasonable), 99% seems like too much. Therefore, I introduced a factor I could use to proportionally scale back the reported vaccination rates and varied that factor to see how much the calculated values changed for various realistic vax rates. I performed two sets of calculations, one with rates scaled back 5%, and another with rates scaled back 15%, to figure high and low estimates and get an idea of how sensitive my final calculations were to this quantity that includes some uncertainty.
Based on this base-rate analysis, if vaccines had no relation to COVID deaths, one would expect unvaccinated people to make up between 24 and 37 of the 146 deaths, and vaccinated people to make up between 109 and 122. However, only 56 of the 146 deaths were vaccinated individuals, and the other 90 were unvaccinated. COVID deaths skew strongly toward the unvaccinated, with unvaccinated people making up 2.5-3.8x more COVID deaths than you’d expect if vaccines had no effect. On the other hand, vaccinated people made up about half as many COVID deaths as you’d expect if the vaccines had no effect.
These calculations also let us ask some additional questions of the data.
Based on the range of vaccination rates considered, the data suggests 71-79 of the 90 deaths among the unvaccinated would have been prevented if that group had experienced deaths at the same rate as the vaccinated group. In other words, it seems like about half of the COVID deaths that occurred in Rhode Island in December 2021 would have been prevented by universal vaccination.
The data also shows that if the vaccinated groups had experienced COVID deaths at the same rate as the unvaccinated group, 212-405 more COVID deaths would have occurred. In other words, without vaccines, the number of COVID deaths in Rhode Island in December could have been in the 350-550 range. (this figure is more sensitive to uncertainty in base vax rates).
Higher values of the base vax rate tend to predict more avoidable deaths and more prevented deaths. Here are my calculations, if you want to have a look.
Also, for a good discussion on why vaccines seem to drive down COVID deaths even when their ability to prevent infection seems to wane over a relatively short timeframe, I highly recommend reading the article that I find has made made the most sense of the pandemic of anything I’ve read: Novelty Means Severity: The Key To the Pandemic.
The February 8 data update from RIDoH included the monthly data regarding age distribution in COVID deaths and breakthroughs to perform this same sort of analysis for January.
All of this is to say, if Omicron had hit before there were vaccines available, January would probably have seen the highest number of COVID deaths of any month in Rhode Island, especially considering that this analysis doesn’t take into account the impact that vaccinations have on reducing hospitalization and transmission along with the compounding effect that even higher case counts and dramatically higher hospitalization numbers (in hospitals that for several weeks were stretched extremely thin) would have had on the number of COVID deaths. As I look at the data, it seems the “mildness” of omicron comes as much from the widespread protection provided by vaccines as it does from any intrinsic lower virulence of the variant itself.
Also - I was speaking with a doctor friend recently who is well-connected with RIDoH, and she suggested that perhaps the vaccination rates reported by RIDoH for the elderly may not be as severe an over-estimate as I’m thinking. I still think that 99% is a little high for 70-79, but my “high” estimate for this group is under 95%. If it is higher than that, then numbers skew even more favorably towards the vaccine reducing COVID deaths.
]]>Based on what I’m seeing (a sustained daily drop in cases of 7-8%), I’m making a prediction. I predict that the “weekly cases per 100k people” metric - one used by CDC and RIDoH to gauge community transmission - will drop below the “High” threshold of 100 (as defined by the CDC) before the end of February. I’ll also be so bold to say I think this is a conservative prediction based on the current trend.
Follow along with the charts below to see how I’m doing (same data, 2nd chart plotted with the horizontal axis in log-scale).
A few notes - the red exponential projection is a decrease of 8.5% a day starting from the value reported on January 16. The yellow trend is based on the average day-over-day change from the past 7 days projected from the recently reported data. In the most recently reported data, the dynamically-calculated average day-over-day change for the past 7 days has been:
If you want to see the sheet with the raw data (that automatically updates from RIDoH’s sheet as it updates) you can see it here.
In case you’re interested - the 8.5% daily drop projection hits the following thresholds on the following days:
Date | Weekly Cases per 100k | CDC Category |
---|---|---|
Feb 24 | 100 | High → Substantial |
Mar 4 | 50 | Substantial → Moderate |
Mar 22 | 10 | Moderate → Low |
Mar 30 | 5 | Low |
Things are changing very quickly. I hope that Governor McKee, Dr. McDonald at RIDoH, and school boards and school administrators are preparing now to let us get the most out of the lull in COVID that is rapidly approaching. It’s too soon to say what things will look like in 6 months, but the next 2-3 are looking very promising right now.
]]>The cleanup…