9:50 AM | This type of solar event hasn’t happened in the US since 1979, but it returns next year
Paul Dorian
Overview
The year was 1979. The Pittsburgh Pirates were on their way to winning the “we are family” baseball championship. The Philadelphia Phillies were only a year away from their first ever World Series championship. And this was the last time that there was a total solar eclipse visible from the contiguous US. Next year - on Monday, August 21, 2017 - not only will there be a total solar eclipse on US soil for the first time since 1979, but totality will extend from coast-to-coast across a good chunk of the country and it will be the first total eclipse visible only in the US since the country was founded in 1776. The next total solar eclipse on US soil will take place in April 2024.
Path of total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017; courtesy NASA, USA Today
Discussion
The last total solar eclipse in the contiguous United States, 37 years ago, only clipped the northwestern United States, mostly rural areas of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and North Dakota. And on that particular day, Feb. 26, 1979, it was cold and dreary in the Northwest, and most people in the path of totality did not even see the eclipse due to clouds and rain. On August 21, 2017, millions of Americans will witness the moon moving in between the Earth and the sun to create a total solar eclipse. This spectacular phenomenon occurs when the sun, the moon, and the Earth line up in a row, causing the moon to cast a shadow over the planet. The 67-mile wide path of the moon’s umbral shadow will begin in the northern Pacific and cross the U.S. from west to east through parts of the following states: Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina. It will pass directly over cities such as Salem, Ore., Idaho Falls, Lincoln, Neb., Kansas City, Nashville, and Columbia and Charleston, S.C. Places within a one- or two-hour drive of the eclipse include Portland, Ore., Boise, Cheyenne, Rapid City, Omaha, Neb., Topeka, St. Louis, Louisville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Atlanta and Charlotte. At any given location, the total eclipse will last for around 2 or 3 minutes. The moon’s penumbral shadow produces a partial eclipse visible from a much larger region covering most of North America. In Philadelphia, about 80% of totality will be reached with a little more than that in DC and a little less in the NYC metro region.
Make your plans now and hope for good weather.
Meteorologist Paul Dorian
Vencore, Inc.