The Great American Eclipse FAQ, Live Coverage
The Great American Eclipse of 2017 is coming, and I'll be near totality in Greenville, South Carolina, at Roper Mountain Science Center with Reed Timmer (tickets are required to get in but are sold out), We are hoping to get 360 video of the eclipse, measure changes in the weather and go live during the event at Facebook.com/AccuWeather as well as our Astronomy Page on Facebook-- and I'll be posting updates as well on my WeatherMatrix Facebook page. We are part of AccuWeather's coast-to-coast coverage of the event.
As an amateur astronomer and meteorologist, I'm pretty hyped. I've seen two eclipses in my life, neither total, so this will be a unique experience. The first was in 1984 - an "annular" eclipse in Boomer, North Carolina, (where I grew up). An annular eclipse puts the moon in the middle of the view of the sun but doesn't completely cover it, so extreme darkness is not achieved. The second was a partial solar eclipse in 1990 in Asheville, North Carolina. I remember both being an eerie experience.
The countdown is on for The Great American Eclipse. NASA says this once in a lifetime event will be viewed by more people than any other astronomical event in history.
- Does the weather change during an eclipse? Yes, in the path of totality, the temperature can fall at least 15 degrees. This probably makes the wind change, but scientists aren't sure.
- When did the last total eclipse occur? The answer to this question depends on what part of Earth you're talking about, and what you consider a total eclipse.
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The last partial solar eclipse was earlier this year but was only visible from South America.
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The last total solar eclipse was just two years ago, but it was visible only in Greenland and the extreme northern part of Europe.
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The last annular eclipse (which covered most of the sun) in the United States was back in 2012, but it was only visible for the western half of the country.
The last total solar eclipse visible from the (continental) U.S. was in 1979 but it was only in the Pacific Northwest. -
The last time a total solar eclipse was visible from coast to coast in the U.S. was in 1918.
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The last time a total solar eclipse took this particular path from Oregon to South Carolina? I have no idea, but it was probably the 1700s or 1800s.
- Can I view the eclipse on webcams? Most webcams aren't pointed at the sun, because it can damage the optics over time. There's almost no record of what happens on a webcam during a total eclipse. I could only find one video on YouTube showing a webcam sequence, and it was a single shot every minute. In theory, you will be able to see the scene get dark on some webcams, but it will depend on how the cameras react to decreasing light.
If so, it could minimize the effect.
This could create a sudden pop of light and sound which might be unsettling and would ruin the effect of the darkening. Live webcams near the path of totality include Earthcam's Seattle, Jackson Hole, Saint Louis, and Myrtle Beach cameras, WeatherSTEM's Nashville and Clemson cameras, Resortcams' Brasstown Mountain and Bryson City cameras, and others on my Live Webcams Map.
- If we haven't had an eclipse in the U.S. in the modern era, could it have unexpected results? We have a lot more technology (that we're dependent on) these days than we did in 1979. Although I suppose the eclipse could have some unintended technical consequences we haven't thought of, it's unlikely because so many eclipses outside of the U.S. (or close-to-total eclipses worldwide) have occured since then.
If you wonder how people acted (and reported things) during the 1979 Solar Eclipse, check this out (watch for Cronkite, stay for the hippies at the end):
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