Clear skies for the 2024 solar eclipse

Old friends and the 2024 eclipse

For years, I know where I would stand on April 8, 2024. Maybe not the exact spot, but somewhere in the path of this year's eclipse. 

I am no eclipse chaser. I don't feel like one. But if the path falls close to me, I must go. It didn’t come close to me, but its path crossed Ohio, putting my hometown of Cleveland in totality for nearly four minutes. 

I worked to find myself in the path of totality. I have lived in the path once (Nashville total eclipse, August 2017), returned to an unbeatable volunteer gig (Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, October 2023), and now can claim Ohio on April 8, 2024. 

Originally I planned to fly. As years passed between Ohio trips, I realized this one required me to drive. 

I had dim hopes for any solar event in Ohio’s rainy months. In the days preceding the eclipse, it felt like we barely received an hour of daily sunlight. Better to expect clouds than end up disappointed. I had to say that after the 2017 eclipse experience. 

All dressed up and ready to view.

We had a prime viewing spot in downtown Nashville. Then a small patch of clouds blocked our view of totality. I didn’t even blog about it at the time. Getting mad at the weather – what good does that do? That Monday I learned the lesson of eclipses – there are zero guarantees no matter how good a spot you find. You have to hope the sky stays clear for totality. 

At the time, I shrugged and remarked that 2024 was not too far away. Suddenly, 2024 arrived. Another Monday eclipse. 

Plans had been in the works for a while. Still I kept eclipse hopes modest. For this one, my high school friends planned to watch from the background. I spent little time worrying if history would repeat itself, just having a good time with old friends. 

Afterward, they acknowledged to not realizing what was about to occur. Indeed, I had no real clue either since I had clouds and twilight in 2017. I stuck with low expectations. Better to see magic than overhype something that doesn’t happen. 

 I was fine with the background viewpoint since they had chickens. Legend about the 1878 total eclipse that crossed much of the unoccupied West says that Thomas Edison set up his equipment in a chicken coop in Rawlins, Wyoming. When totality arrived, the residents of Edison’s temporary quarters supposedly swarmed backed in, thinking that night had arrived and they would be exposed to predators. Edison fumed over potential damage to his equipment. 

The anticipation builds as the moon starts its move. You have to track the moon’s progress. The first sliver to move into the Sun demands attention; the view will only improve from there. 

 What still amazes me is how much daylight remains even as the moon moves more than halfway into the sun’s path. Everyone expected some darkness during October’s 2023 ecliose, but we got a long stretch of weird light. 

 As the eclipse moved passed the 90 percent mark, the sky turned weird. The air turned cold as if the sunlight no longer reached us. We were bathed in unusual light, shades only possibly when most of the sun is blocked. But until totality and the final sliver of sun slipped behind the moon, the sky would stay afternoon bright. 

What no one tells anyone is the second totality begins, everything changes. You can never go back. That sliver of sun slips into a circle of black and the sun’s normally invisible corona rises in white shadows around the blackened moon. No one on this planet will ever see a faster shift from daylight to dusk. 

We took off our eclipse glasses, as the risk to the eyes is gone during totality. During the annual eclipse in 2023, we could not removed them, as there is no safe viewing due to the “ring of fire” nature of the annular eclipse. 

 My friend Marje spotted a red spot near the moon’s edge. A friend’s photo later confirmed it was a solar flare surging out of the moon’s shadow. It was one of many in his camera, but one we could definitely see during totality. 

I failed in one regard – I left multiple solar filters for my camera at home. Were it not for one picture from my friend Dru’s phone, there would be no evidence that I saw this eclipse. The pictures from mine looked like shots of the sun, moon or some random star in the night sky. 

The enormity of those four minutes cannot be overstated. The sky did something it would not normally do. Birds squawked as if twilight descended. Twilight had arrived, even if we could see the edge of twilight in the zones outside totality on either side of us. 

As the moment ended, we returned to our eclipse glasses. The moon would linger across the sun for another hour or more, but once totality passed, nothing could top what we already witnessed. 

Only one area proved disappointing. Marje and Dru’s cat slept through the whole proceedings, but that was unsurprising. The nine chickens didn’t budge. They pecked at the ground as nonchalantly as they would any afternoon. 

It’s their loss. Those chickens won’t be pecking the ground the next time an eclipse passes across northeast Ohio.

Not even an odd glance. They just pecked.