Upstate NY now looks like one of the clearest spots in U.S. to see the solar eclipse

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Upstate New York may defy the historical odds and boast some of the clearest skies of anywhere along the total solar eclipse path in the U.S. on Monday.

“Clear skies in the path of totality are most likely in northern New England and Upstate New York,” the Weather Prediction Center said today in its daily eclipse weather briefing. The center is the medium-range forecasting arm of the National Weather Service.

That would flip history on its head. Historically speaking, Upstate New York is one of the areas along the eclipse path most likely to have clouds on the afternoon of April 8. In the U.S., the path runs from southwestern Texas to northern Maine.

An important caveat: Predicting clouds for a two-hour window four days in advance is a risky and imperfect endeavor. Expect the forecast to change as we get closer to Monday.

Still, the signs so far are encouraging.

The weather service forecast for 2 p.m. Monday calls for about 30% of the sky to be covered in clouds across much of Upstate New York. That’s about the same as Wednesday’s forecast.

The odds of clear skies have slightly worsened for Western New York, however. A storm system moving in from the Midwest might reach the Buffalo area by Monday afternoon, and the chances of clouds are about 60%. There’s even a 20% to 30% chance of rain Monday afternoon.

It’s important to note that clouds are not all created equal. Lower clouds are more dense and opaque, while high clouds, those from about 15,000 to 60,000 feet above the Earth, tend to be thin and wispy. Those wispy clouds are often the vanguard of storms, arriving a day or so before the lower, moisture-laden rain clouds.

“Those are those thin kind of cirrus clouds, and we don’t expect them to be very thick” on Monday afternoon, said Abbey Gant, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

A few thin clouds won’t block the view of the eclipse, and all we need is mostly clear skies for a couple of hours. The eclipse runs from about 2:10 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Upstate New York. Totality, when the moon completely blocks the moon, lasts for a few seconds to nearly 4 minutes depending on the distance from the center of the line of totality.

While cloud forecasting is fraught with uncertainty, forecasters are fairly certain that Monday will be a nice day to be outside looking at the sky. Temperatures are expected to be in the 50s and even low 60s, which is several degrees warmer than normal for April 8.

Temperatures will fall a few degrees during the eclipse as the sunlight disappears, then rebound as the moon moves away from the sun.