If Skies Stay Clear, A REALLY Cool Lunar Eclipse Early Tomorrow Morning

Get up early tomorrow morning to view the total lunar
eclipse. The moon will look red like in this photo.
It'll also be near the western horizon as the sun is 
coming up during totality. 

A lunar eclipse is going to be visible across the United States early tomorrow morning, but the eastern United States, including here in Vermont are in for a special treat. 

The lunar eclipse will happen right around sunrise. As the sun is coming up in the east, the moon will be a deep red color because of the eclipse just before it sinks below the western horizon. 

To time it out here in Vermont, the total eclipse of the moon will start at 6:04 a.m and end at 7:02 a.m. But you won't see the end of it because the moon will be below the horizon by then. 

Here's the fun part: The maximum of the eclipse is at 6:25 a.m, when the moon will be at its reddest color. Meanwhile, the sun will rise at 6:26 a.m. Burlington time. And depending on where you are in Vermont, the moon will set in the west sometime between 6:18 and 6:28 a.m 

During totality, the moon will look red like it does in most total lunar eclipses. However, the moon will be near the horizon, so you'll have that perspective. I imagine views from the Champlain Valley toward the Adirondacks while this is going on will be awesome. This is cooler than the "typical" lunar eclipse. 

The moon obviously doesn't have its own light. We see the moon shining brightly because the sun's light is blasting it. During a lunar eclipse, the Earth gets between the sun and moon, casting its shadow on the moon. 

The moon looks red during a total eclipse because the Earth's atmosphere bends sunlight and indirectly lights up the moon's surface. 

A total lunar eclipse will happen at any given location on average once every 2.5 years. 

After tomorrow, the next total lunar eclipse that will be visible from Vermont will be on June 25, 2029.

Of course, you can't see a lunar eclipse if it's cloudy. Too bad the eclipse wasn't this morning since it was crystal clear. Of course, temperatures were below zero, so you would have frozen your butt off watching it. 

As it looks now, some high clouds will be coming into Vermont at the time of the eclipse. That might not be such a bad thing. During the much more rare total eclipse of the sun in April, 2024, there were some high clouds overhead but those clouds actually enhanced the event, making it all the more fantastic.   

The high clouds might make the eclipse even more interesting than it otherwise would be. High, thin clouds tend to glow red, orange and pink at sunrise.  This could get really interesting.

The bottom line is depending on where you are in Vermont at dawn tomorrow, the eclipse might look at little milky behind the high clouds, and in other areas the high clouds will be so unsubstantial it won't interfere with the viewing at all. 

It will be cold again, however. Temperatures at that hour should be in the single numbers to low teens. Pretty chilly, but not as bad as this morning  

Weird, Cool Clouds At Edge Of Nor'easter Over Vermont

Puffs of clouds with little streaks beneath them over
northwest Vermont today. Those wisps were
actually rain strangely coming from the tiny 
clouds, but evaporating well before 
hitting the ground. 

People (correctly) tell me I have my head in the clouds. 

And it's true I'm always staring up into the sky. Which makes me notice things. 

My sky gazing today gave me a couple of rewards: The tiniest little showers I've seen in ages, and quite a contrast between clear and cloudy.

The first photo in this post show the sky looking north from Colchester, Vermont. They're just a patch of bumpy mid-level clouds. 

But notice those wisps beneath many of them. That's rain falling from them. It shows that even the tiniest clouds can form rain under the right conditions 

The rain never came close to reaching the ground. The raindrops evaporated in the very dry air overhead. The relative humidity was only about 35 percent at the time, so that's really dry air. 

Sharp line between clear skies and overcast looking
southwest from Colchester, Vermont this afternoon. 

The second photo is looking southwest from the same spot in Colchester at about the same time as our tiny little rain showers were hovering off to the north. 

It's a remarkably sharp cutoff between mostly clear skies and overcast. 

It was part of the northern edge of a huge cloud shield associated with the big nor'easter hitting the East Coast today. 

I'm guessing the clouds, running into the dry air over northern New York and Vermont, was having an effect on these clouds

Satellite photos show that this sharp band between clear and cloudy extended from northwest Vermont clear across far northern New York. 

That sharp cut off of clear skies and overcast is 
visible on satellite photos across northern 
New York and a piece of northwest Vermont
If you click on the image to make it bigger,
you can see the shadow the clouds cast on
areas near Burlington. 

In the satellite photo, also in this post, if you look closely, you can see the shadow cast by the cloud shield as well. 

The sun was fairly low in the sky when the phot was taken around 3:30 p.m this afternoon.

The satellite photo also shows a southwest to northeast band of feathery clouds across Vermont. That is part of the upper level outflow of moisture from the big storm. 

You can also see in the satellite photo thicker clouds off to the south. 

Those will be in Vermont tomorrow, though far northern Vermont is still not likely to see much rain. 

Southern Vermont is still up for a half inch to an inch of rain, which will be nice for a bit of drought relief. 

The gray overcast we expect on Monday won't make the sky as interesting as it was today, though.  

Stunning Light Pillars Light Up A Cold Vermont Night

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington
Friday posted this incredible photo of light pillars
at Jay Peak Resort. Cold, calm weather helps
create this relatively rare phenomenon.

 The National Weather Service office in South Burlington on Friday posted a spectacular photo of light pillars before dawn Friday at the Jay Peak Resort.   

As you can see in the photo, street and parking lights, outdoor security lights and such formed narrow, towering beams of light that looked like a strange impressionist painting.  It looked like some sort of freaky laser light show.

So why did ordinary outdoor lights go haywire on a chilly December pre-dawn?

The lights were fine and working as designed. It turns out a certain type of ice crystal that forms on very cold nights created this relatively rare phenomenon. 

 According to Science ABC:

"These plates of ice crystals orient themselves hexagonally as they drift down through the atmosphere. Their collective surfaces act like a giant mirror that reflects the light falling on them. The light being reflected will extend to a certain distance both above and below the light source. The denser and larger the ice crystals, the more pronounced this effect becomes.

The angle of the ice crystal surfaces will deviate a few degrees from the horizontal orientation, which causes the light pillar, as it elongates the reflection of light. Thus, these phenomena usually appear as columns of lights to an observer."

We get lots of cold nights in Vermont during the winter. As you've guessed, this type of cool light display can only happen under certain conditions. First of all, winds need to be pretty much calm. Wind would disrupt the reflection of light. 

Usually, cold air is pretty dry, but it does contain some moisture, certainly enough for the ice crystals to form. To help with the moisture supply, there was a temperature inversion over Vermont early Friday. 

The inversion, in which a layer of warm air rests atop cold, dense air near the surface, forms a lid.  Moisture from the ground, exhaust from chimneys and cars, and evaporation from rivers and streams probably added to the moisture content of the air. 

Light pillars were also seen elsewhere in Vermont Thursday night and Friday morning. Some spectacular ones were spotted in Barre, for instance. 

Most winter nights don't feature light pillars. But if you want to try hunting then down, they're most likely well after sunset, and often in the pre-dawn hours when winds are lightest.