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It’s not as dark as one would expect with 80 to 90% of the sun blocked by the moon.
That seems to be a common observation of those in the penumbra of a total solar eclipse, a few hundred miles outside the path where the moon totally blocks the sun. It’s a testament to how incredibly efficient our life-sustaining sun is at giving off light and heat even when only a sliver of it manages to eke around the moon.
For the second time in seven years, this is where Virginia will be on Monday relative to a much-anticipated total solar eclipse traversing the continental United States.
While Virginia will not slip into daytime darkness or get to see the sun’s corona blaring around the dark disk of the moon, an 80-90% solar eclipse is an unusual phenomenon that our state won’t experience at a similar level for another 28 years. If you can’t travel to totality, it’s still worth your time to experience Monday’s eclipse in Virginia, even if just for a few minutes. Current forecasts lean toward clear to partly cloudy skies on eclipse day in Virginia, but of course, this can change.
(UPDATE SATURDAY, 4/6: Indeed the forecast has changed some for our region — more clouds, but probably not totally cloudy everywhere, with a slight chance of showers. A weather system moving a bit farther east will also potentially clear the view for more of the totality path than earlier expected.)
Got pics from your eclipse event? Share those to news@cardinalnews.org by 6 p.m. Monday. Please include where the photo was taken, who or what is in the photo, and who took the photo.
Other than efforts to forecast cloud cover and observation of effects on temperatures, eclipses are not really meteorology, but rather astronomy, and typically would be outside the confines of what I discuss here in the weekly Cardinal Weather column. But this is the big national sky story of the week ahead, so we’ll dive into it.
With an approximately 120-mile-wide path of totality moving southwest to northeast from deep in the heart of Texas across Arkansas into the Ohio Valley and then the western fringe of New England and much of Maine, there will be slightly less solar blockage in Virginia than on August 21, 2017. That eclipse had a totality path much closer to our commonwealth, the shadow sliding southeast from the Pacific Northwest and eventually across much of Tennessee and into South Carolina. (Incidentally, southern Illinois, western Kentucky and southeast Missouri are where the 2017 and 2024 totality paths cross.)
At the peak of the eclipse for Virginia between 3 and 3:20 p.m. on Monday, April 8, the moon will block a few decimals short of 90% of the sun in the state’s southwest tip, ranging down to just over 80% in eastern parts of Southside Virginia. The entirety of the eclipse will last about 2 ½ hours, starting near or shortly before 2 p.m. and lasting until almost 4:30 p.m. (For most precise information for your specific location, the Time and Date website linked here is an excellent source.)
For those looking at the sun with approved eclipse glasses or indirectly with a pinhole projector, the sun will appear to be a golden crescent rimming a dark sphere at peak. There will in fact be only 10-20% of the normal sunlight reaching the surface, which will result in some eerie shadows and a darker sky tone. Also, beneath any trees that have leafed out, lighted crescents will appear amid shadows on the ground, the result of projection of the sun’s appearance through gaps in the leaf canopy. Many have commented to me how this is the most striking effect of being in a greater-than-50% partial eclipse, but variable early spring budding and greening will make this effect less pervasive than during the late summer foliage of August 2017.
Temperatures typically drop a few degrees even in partial solar blockage and any convection-enhanced cloud cover like cumulus clouds reduces in coverage or disappears as more and more of the sun is eclipsed.
Some Virginians with the time availability and passion to do so will be traveling out of state to enter the totality path.
An estimated 1 to 3 million people nationally will be traveling into totality, joining 31 million who already live there. Potential logistical issues with crammed interstates and strained local resources have led several states in the path to declare a state of emergency in order to mobilize emergency assets ahead of time for any potential problems.
While many Virginians chose Tennessee or South Carolina to experience totality in 2017, I traveled to western Kentucky, ending up at Pennyrile Forest State Resort Park, watching the moon fully block the sun for over 2 minutes with a few hundred others at a golf course beside where NASA was launching weather balloons.
An August eclipse brought a local temperature drop from the mid 90s to the upper 70s, as measured by a teenage future scientist at our location. The darkness at peak was comparable to that about 30-45 minutes after sundown. Cicadas sang from the trees for a few minutes as if sunset had indeed arrived, Venus popped out to adorn the weirdly darkened sky, and the horizons were lit with a golden glow like a 360-degree sunrise.
A distant developing thunderstorm on one horizon entirely collapsed during the eclipse, its heat source cut off, leaving an orange-glowing orphaned cirrus anvil painting the sky. Cumulus clouds that began popping up a couple hours before the eclipse quickly washed out.
I found totality to be an unforgettable, soul-stirring experience that made me feel miniscule within space and time. (For those with Roanoke Times online subscriptions or who haven’t reached whatever number of free clicks non-subscribers are allowed now, linked here is my article from 2017 in which I and others describe our experiences with totality.)
Those who experience totality for a second time in seven years on Monday will, if they are near the centerline of the totality path, find the darkness to be deeper and longer lasting than with the 2017 eclipse. The totality path is about 50 miles wider than that of 2017, with totality lasting over 4 minutes near the centerline, compared to just over 2 minutes in 2017. With sunlight farther away, it will be darker near the core of the totality path than it was seven years ago, and with the eclipse moving faster, darkness will crash more suddenly on locations in the path.
Sadly, most present-day Virginians, barring extraordinary improvements in human longevity, will not be around the next time a total eclipse crosses commonwealth soil.
The last total solar eclipse in Virginia clipped the southeast corner in the Hampton Roads area on March 7, 1970, and the next one will do almost exactly the same thing on May 11, 2078.
A much broader section of Virginia including about the northeastern half of current Cardinal News territory in Southwest and Southside Virginia will experience a total eclipse on Sept. 14, 2099. Lynchburg gets four minutes of totality and Roanoke will be near the edge of totality in that southeast-moving eclipse, with Blacksburg and Danville just outside. The centerline near Lovingston, Farmville and Emporia will have almost five minutes of daytime darkness.
The next time Southwest and Southside Virginia will get as much as 75% solar blockage in an eclipse will be Aug. 12, 2045, when the totality path will mark a curving stripe from northern California to Florida, crossing Monday’s total eclipse path over western Arkansas. That eclipse in 21 years will feature about 6 minutes of totality at its centerline.
The next time our region will see greater than 80% blockage will be March 30, 2052, when totality moves northeast over the southeast corner of the U.S., exiting at Charleston, S.C.
Solar eclipses happen every year somewhere on Earth, but the darkest paths rarely cross any particular locality and infrequently are even the partial phases seen at any given spot. Enjoy Monday’s rarity whether you chase the shadow or wait here for the crescent.
Super Outbreak anniversary
Wednesday and Thursday, April 3-4, mark the 50th anniversary of one of the nation’s most deadly and destructive weather events, the original Super Outbreak of tornadoes affecting numerous states near and east of the Mississippi River, including Virginia.
During the 1974 Super Outbreak, 148 tornadoes were confirmed in 13 states and one Canadian province in less than 24 hours, including 30 tornadoes rated in the two highest intensity categories. The tornadoes killed 319 people and caused what would be more than $5 billion in damage in 2024 dollars.
In the region covered by Cardinal News, there were two significant early morning tornadoes that were part of the Super Outbreak. One person was killed when a tornado hit a mobile home as it swept through Saltville in Washington County during pre-dawn darkness. Near sunrise, a tornado moved from Salem through northwest Roanoke into northern Roanoke County, injuring six people as it damaged 120 homes, two apartment complexes and four schools.
A second “Super Outbreak” occurred on April 25-28, 2011, with 350 tornadoes in 21 states, killing 324. Deadly tornadoes at Glade Spring in Washington County and in rural Halifax County occurred during that outbreak. While the 2011 Super Outbreak lasted longer with more tornadoes, it had half as many tornadoes in the two highest intensity categories as the much shorter 1974 Super Outbreak. There is also the widespread thought that modern Doppler radar and more pervasive storm surveys by local National Weather Service offices would have picked up on many weaker tornadoes that were overlooked in what for its time was an extensively detailed post-outbreak survey by eminent tornado scientist Ted Fujita.
Virginia Tech graduate Kathryn Prociv, now a senior meteorologist and producer for NBC News, has written an extensive comparison of the two Super Outbreaks for ustornadoes.com. Last year in this space, we covered the history of particularly notable April tornadoes in our region, including those in both Super Outbreaks.
Brief winter relapse
After Wednesday’s rain and storms pass, westerly and northwesterly winds wrapping around the back side of a strong Northeast U.S. low-pressure system will bring much colder temperatures, with many 20s and 30s lows across Southwest and Southside Virginia each morning through Sunday. Take care of your tender vegetation.
Overnight Wednesday into Thursday, moisture lifted up and over the Appalachians wlll bring periods of snow showers to many areas along and west of the Blue Ridge, especially higher elevations. Little or no accumulation is expected, but it will seem like spring has forsaken us for a short while. The high country of eastern West Virginia may see several inches of snow, and parts of interior New England may see one of their largest snowstorms of early 2024 with 1 to 2 feet possible in some locations.
Dry weather is expected to linger through the weekend into next week, including a sunny eclipse day on Monday. Temperatures will remain cool to cold in the mornings but start warming back up into the 70s during the afternoon by the early to middle part of next week.
Journalist Kevin Myatt has been writing about weather for 20 years. His weekly column, appearing on Wednesdays, is sponsored by Oakey’s, a family-run, locally owned funeral home with locations throughout the Roanoke Valley.
