[Phil Hart]

Here are my thoughts after watching the weather in Cairns for a couple of weeks..

Similar to my experience with them in Victoria, I would rate the BoM and EU models as more useful/accurate than the US model, although you can usually interpret the same patterns in the US model, just with lower resolution. It is reassuring when they all agree, but as Jay Anderson and other meteorologists have said, the models tend to be more like each other than the real weather.

The BoM model is just a little bit hard to use at the moment as the only representation we have is a 'synthetic' infrared forecast image which makes picking out low cloud on night time and early morning images tricky. The EU model via yr.no is great as it gives you the breakdown in percentage for low/mid/high cloud, but unfortunately you can only get spot forecasts for specific locations.. there are no free websites that show a map of the cloud forecasts from this EU model.

Before I started this thread two weeks ago, on the basis of what I had read and heard till then, my plan was to setup where I am staying with family and friends at Newell Beach (just north of Port Douglas) and take whatever weather I got on the day. I understood that my odds there were as good there as anywhere else.

However, after watching the patterns these last two weeks, I now expect to drive out along the Mulligan Highway the evening before the eclipse, stay beside the car through the night, and photograph the eclipse from 60km inland, at the end of that long straight stretch of road just before the Mulligan Highway turns to the north.

There have been a few days where the models have predicted clear conditions along the coast, and generally been correct, so with a forecast like that I might stay on the beach (but ready to jump if the skies don't still look clear at ~2am). Otherwise, under the typical forecast pattern of some low clouds along the coast and ranges, and since photography is a lot less flexible than visually observing an eclipse, I expect to head inland as the chances have been better there most days. It's just a pity there are so few good roads and places to setup as 60km is not as far inland as I would like to be.. it's still a marginal proposition.

So for most people, the coast is probably still the right option and for visual observers even the ability to move a few hundred metres up or down along the beach might be enough to improve your chances and miss a poorly placed low cloud.

The inland option means doing a scouting trip in the days beforehand, and not sleeping much if at all the night before to find a space where you can pull off the road in plenty of time before sunrise.

So I'm certainly not advising people on the coast to change their plans. However, for people staying in Mt Carbine and other locations close to the ranges, I think you do need a good Plan B. The ranges are typically cloudier than the coast or inland, and with the sun so low in the sky you would often have lost it in the clouds over these last two weeks. Some days are ok, and logistically you are in good spot able to quickly move east or west, but I would have a good plan of where you are headed if you wake up to cloudy skies early on eclipse morning (and leaving yourself plenty of time to make the move).

Good luck all.. we're going to need it!

Phil