Even better Total Solar Eclipse for Ohio... maybe

Columbus (WCMH) We are less than 7 years away from our next Total Solar Eclipse in the United States. The next one worldwide, will occur in early July of 2019, mostly in South America.

What is different about the Monday, April 8th, 2024 Total Solar Eclipse is that we WILL see totality here in much of Ohio. This will start at 3:08pm in far western Ohio, and about 3:15pm in the northeast corner of the state.

This eclipse will last LONG too!! Almost 3.5-4 minutes long in totality. Totality will be shorter near the edges of the “100%” range, and closer to 4 minutes in the middle.It is waaaay too early to forecast what the skies will look like on April 8, 2024:

However, we can look to see what trends look like for the month of April. If I had to pick a month for eclipse viewing, I would pick August again. August has the best odds of not having a cloudy day here in Central Ohio.

We do not get to pick what month our eclipse falls on, so I have looked back at data from April.

In the past 6 years of April’s here in Central Ohio, our “cloudy days” (bad viewing days for eclipse):

2017 11 days
2016 9 days
2015 12 days
2014 7 days
2013 6 days
2012 8 days

Not all of Ohio is cloudy at the same time, and some spots are a bit cloudier than others.

Studying climate data from the National Centers for Environmental Information at NOAA, I was able to find the 30 year average for cloudy days in a few climate spots in Ohio.

Looking at the map above, you notice that Ohio sees more than half of the month of April being cloudy. The thickest clouds tend to be closer to Lake Erie as well in April, spots that will see the longest and best eclipse.If you are in the path of this eclipse, expect viewing in the mid-afternoon.

In Columbus: