Total eclipse of the heart

With the first total eclipse seen in Arkansas in more than 100 years about six weeks away, and with a guarantee that it will absolutely happen, the only thing that could rain on the parade is, well, rain.

While that would disappoint a lot of people (it’s estimated that up to 1.5 million will visit the state to witness the event), cloud cover could be almost as bad. And as predictable as the eclipse is, no matter how advanced our weather forecasting technology has become, we still don’t know with absolute certainty what Mother Nature will do, or when she’ll do it.

But that’s not going to stop people from predicting the weather—and it hasn’t stopped them from predicting what it will be on April 8 when the eclipse passes over a large swath of the state.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is trying to help sky-gazers figure out at least what the chances are of rain or shine. It turns out that based on history, Texarkana and Fort Smith may be the best places to witness the full effect of the celestial phenomenon.

According to Dennis Cavanaugh, acting meteorologist-in-charge of the National Weather Service in Little Rock, the agency has a “solid 30-year climatology of sky reports” to try to give people “an idea of what is more likely on average, to be less cloudy so that you have a better eclipse viewing experience.”

Historically, Texarkana sees 64.7 percent visibility during early April. Fort Smith has 63.3 percent, and Little Rock has between 49.1 and 58 percent, depending on where in Little Rock you happen to be.

However, Cavanaugh admits that various interactive maps that try to predict the likelihood and amount of cloud cover will be “totally worthless” once April 1 rolls around.

We’ll go him one further: Earlier this month we saw a two-week-out forecast on the Weather Channel’s website. It called for ice on Monday, Feb. 19. When that particular Monday got here, there was no ice in sight. It was a nice February day.

Lesson: This far out, nobody knows. Not even the experts.

But three days before? They’ll nail that forecast, like they always do. But we’ll have to wait till then.