Some Clouds with a 100% Chance of Eclipse

Today the long awaited, much anticipated total solar eclipse blocked out the sun across the continental United States. We were fortunate not just to live within the path of totality, but for the centerline of that path to pass about a mile north of our house. The only traveling we had to do was go over to Mom’s house so that we could help her outside to enjoy this once in a lifetime event.

People can say what they want to about the random chance that the earth, moon, and sun being so perfectly positioned so that this event even happens. For me, the words of this Jewish blessing more aptly fits the bill. “Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the universe, who makes the works of creation.”

I remember there being some excitement about the total eclipse of February 26, 1979, but it was so far north of here that there wasn’t a lot for us to see. And to be honest, I’m probably confusing that event a bit with the eclipse on May 30, 1984, (just five days after my high school graduation) which was closer to here, but being annular was less impressive. What I really recall is that sometime about midday the sky got kinda dim. We’ve had five eclipses in this part of the world since then, but none of them impressive enough to bring life to a stop until now. Someone at church mentioned seeing an old 1979 newscast on YouTube where CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite mentioned then that the next eclipse to happen for us would be this one, some 38 years in the future. I looked it up. Sort of strange to hear him say that from this point in history.

This eclipse is remarkable for us in that it almost perfectly bisects our country making it one of the easiest eclipses for North Americans to travel to see in decades. The moon’s shadow began to fall on the earth’s surface this morning out in the Pacific Ocean south of the Aleutian Islands, made landfall in Oregon around 10:18 PDT, reached the greatest totality at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, at 1:26 CDT, proceeded to South Carolina where it headed out to the Atlantic at 2:48 EDT, and finally disappeared before getting to the western coast of Africa. The path of totality for this eclipse was about 70 miles wide and the shadow crossed the continent in about 90 minutes. We enjoyed 2 minutes and 40 seconds of totality here (the maximum possible duration of totality if conditions are right is over 7 minutes).

The hype started building around here about a year ago, reaching a fever pitch as this summer has progressed. I have been excited (so much so that I had trouble going to sleep last night). We’ve heard everything from eye safety (which is very important) to phenomena to look for (I learned a lot here) to what to expect with all the tourists and their demands on our local infrastructure (some of these predictions sounded near apocalyptic). I think it was wise that our schools (not just DA, but all the local school systems) decided to cancel classes today. I was not looking forward to the drive home from work had we not closed our doors for the event. I am glad to report that I have not heard much in the way of “end of the world” talk, but I have been dismayed by the bad science out there as well as the abundance of counterfeit eclipse glasses. I’ll stop now before I get on a tirade.

I guess about the biggest concern for me once the eclipse hit my radar for planning ahead was the weather forecast. This summer started out wet, got really dry and hot, and has recently been wet again. Over a week ago the extended forecast had thunderstorm and partly cloudy icons on this date, but as time wore on that was updated to reflect a greater than 50% likelihood of clear skies. That was a relief. The predicted high was in the upper 80s, but during the eclipse we observed the temperature drop from 86° to 77° (official weather reporting stations reported 5° drops).

As I mentioned in the previous edition sent out last night, Will, Zachary, and Emily drove in to see the eclipse. Cameron has returned to school and Darice had other plans. They decided to avoid the traffic on Interstates 81 and 40 and came here through Kentucky.

Today’s event started for us just a few minutes before noon. I was amazed at how quickly the moon moved across the face of the sun. I had loaded everything up ahead of time. We ate a quick lunch and headed over to Mom’s and set up in her yard. The funny thing was that we were trying to rush Mom out the door to get her situated in time to enjoy the eclipse and she kept insisting on fussing with her hair and lipstick.

By 1:00 the sunlight was eerily dim and growing darker fast, and the temperature began to get noticeably cooler where it had been hot and muggy. We were not around any animals, but the sound of the insects changed to those chirps associated with nighttime.

I took several pictures of the eclipse with the pinhole projector I had made, but as totality approached I just closed the camera app deciding to follow the advice I had been hearing to make sure and enjoy the moment.

We had some white sheets spread out on the ground to try and see the shadow bands we’d been hearing about. I guess conditions were not ideal because what we saw was very faint.

At 1:27 the app on my phone was counting down to totality. We watched through our glasses as the last sliver of sun disappeared behind the moon. The next 160 seconds seemed to fly by as we sat transfixed with our eclipse glasses off enjoying the spectacle in the sky. Where the sun was supposed to be was a black hole as if someone had carefully cut it from a picture, and the the sun’s corona made the most spectacular halo around that hole. The sky was a strange twilight. Venus was visible toward the west but it wasn’t dark enough to pick out any other planets or stars. And all around the horizon, literally every direction you looked, was the prettiest glow similar to the afterglow of a sunset.

It wasn’t long before my phone announced that we had reached maximum totality, the mid-point of the eclipse. A little over a minute later it began the countdown to put glasses back on. All too soon the sun began to peek out from behind the other side of the moon and everything returned to normal as quickly as it had gone to special. By 3:00 the whole thing was over.

I must say that was the most beautiful natural phenomenon I have ever seen in my life.

Back at home we tuned in to the local news to see what others had experienced. The folks in Nashville had more clouds overhead than we did here. The sun was completely obscured by cloud cover for all of totality for everyone who was at the Adventure Science Center. One local TV station also showed the heavy traffic already heading home on I-65 between the White House and Cross Plains exits. That prompted us to get on Google Maps where it was easy to trace the eclipse path from all the red lines marking traffic congestion on the major roads from coast to coast.

I don’t know how many people enjoyed the eclipse from Cross Plains, but Kilgore Park was full as was our church parking lot. I talked to one guy in the church parking lot from Ohio who had spent the night in his “Dodge lodge” (he had a Dodge minivan) and had his telescope set up. A look at the guest register poster on the back door showed that Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as well as Japan and Spain were represented along with Ohio. We saw license plates from these states and others when we cruised through the park.

As I said above, we enjoyed the good fortune of living right in the path of this stellar event. That won’t happen here again for another 450 years, but there is the potential for me to see two more total eclipses in my lifetime should God allow me the opportunity to enjoy them. Both of these will be within easy driving distance. We are certainly discussing it. The next is in less than seven years from now on April 8, 2024, and the best one after that will be on August 12, 2045, the day before my 79th birthday.

So, in honor of the late Walter Cronkite, I’ll wrap this up by saying, “And that’s the way it is Monday, August 21, 2017.”

Joe