We are taking a look at conditions for
the Great American eclipse happening on Monday,
April 8th.
I'm ABC 10 chief meteorologist Monica Woods.
Now just taking a look at the anatomy of a solar eclipse,
we have the usual conditions where we've got the earth orbiting around the sun
and at the mean, in the meantime,
we've got the moon orbiting around the earth
and every so often and it's a rare experience
that we have the moon shading the sunlight and
that will happen with our total solar eclipse.
A unique opportunity this year, especially for the United States.
As far as conditions go.
You can see the path of total eclipse happening from roughly Texas,
pushing through parts of the southern region and then into the Great
Lakes and finally into New England as far as the west coast.
This is not the year for us.
We're going to be anywhere from about 60% of that
eclipse to only about 20% throughout the Pacific Northwest.
So really hitting
the center of the US for this eclipse in the year 2024.
As far as our solar eclipse, locally, we have about 35% of the sun covered.
The last one that we had in 2017 was almost 80% of coverage locally.
The next total eclipse in the United States will happen
in 20 years for northern California. This will be about the timeline.
It'll begin at 1016 with maximum 35% coverage happening at 1115 in the morning,
it will end at 1218.
And again, we'll have the clear skies. The one caveat is you gotta remember this.
Even with any cloud cover out there,
you cannot look directly at the sun without eclipse glasses.
And even though it will only be 35% covered,
still cannot look at that sun without those special eclipse glasses.
A lot of the libraries are actually providing those.
You may want to check that out if you want to happen to uh take
a look at that eclipse or there's a couple of viewing places as well.
We've got those listed on ABC ten.com. Ok.
So let's take a look at some of the impacts with the timeline.
90 minutes before partial eclipse will begin,
you got to use those special glasses at that point.
So about an hour and a half before the peak period,
you want to get those glasses on 50 minutes before solar energy decreases,
temperatures drop 30 minutes before we've got the sky starting to
darken and 10 minutes before behavior of plants and animals affected.
And then five seconds before they have
something called the Bailey's Beads where the sunlight
uh
along the edge of the moon will be present. So pretty cool conditions there.
2024 solar eclipse. Let's take a look at the time that the sun will be eclipsed. And
in San Antonio, it will be 133 central daylight time.
And then we've got 140 for Dallas Little Rock at 151.
As we travel up to the north here,
Indianapolis gets in the path of that total eclipse at 306 with Cleveland at three.
And now we travel through New England Buffalo at 318 and Burlington
at 3:26 p.m. So some pretty cool conditions there as
far as being able to have access to that.
However,
not everybody is going to have the clear skies here in Northern California.
We're lucky enough,
we clear conditions and we get back to clear skies for
the path of that eclipse for the uh mid morning,
late morning hours into the early afternoon.
But
again, for parts of the central and southern plains, as well as the Great Lakes,
we've got some cloud cover that we're going to be dealing with
during the path of totality there.
Lots of cloud cover, especially throughout Texas.
And through Arkansas, it starts to thin out a bit throughout the Great Lakes region,
including Indiana, as well as Ohio.
And then through New England, we've got a mix of sun and clouds out there,
severe weather potential actually happens throughout much
of Texas for our Monday forecast.
It's just i
it looks like the timing isn't going to be right for really severe weather during
the total eclipse period. Perhaps it's going to be a little bit later in the day.
You can take a look at this.
This is the cloud cover and the rain showers as we travel with that total eclipse,
moving through the central and southern plains and then
pushing its way into the Great Lakes region including Indianapolis
and then off towards Cleveland where that could be one of the places we
have the best viewing just based on the amount of cloud cover coming through
as it travels towards Buffalo.
Lots of cloud cover there, Burlington,
just some thin clouds for the path of totality.
And then finally, like I said,
Maine looking barely clear for that path across the United States
when you need that eye protection
again, 90 minutes before when the partial eclipse begins,
that's glasses on times the diamond ring.
You want to keep those glasses on as well as with the Bailey's beads totality.
You can take the glasses off.
Northern California,
can't take the glasses off because we do not have totality here.
So there's only a few locations that will be safe to do so,
final stages glasses back on.
So folks that are in the path of totality really have this
unique experience to be able to see that eclipse without the glasses.
Again, that is not northern California.
So again, a look at the Great American Eclipse.
A couple of key factors here,
slightly cooler conditions with less sunlight as the temperatures drop,
it could mean a few less clouds as well and less heat,
higher relative humidity as the temperature cool and near calm winds.
Thanks to the loss of daylight.
So we're getting ready for the Great American Eclipse.
We'll be following it right here on ABC 10.