Enjoy the Solar Eclipses in the TX Hill Country!
Get Ready for two total Solar Eclipses Coming to the US in 2023 & 2024
IT'S NOT TOO EARLY TO START PLANNING FOR THE TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSES
On October 14, 2023, an
annular solar eclipse will begin over the Pacific Ocean and will reach the USA at Oregon. After passing through California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, the path of annular solar eclipse will bisect Texas.
In 2024, locations in Texas that fall within the path will experience totality for two minutes to nearly five minutes.
According to
NationalEclipse.com, "The centerline of the eclipse enters Texas, and the U.S., as it crosses the Rio Grande River at the Mexico-U.S. border at approximately 12:10pm CDT, with totality beginning in that location at about 1:27pm CDT.
As it exits Mexico and enters the U.S., traveling through the Texas Hill Country, the eclipse will have already reached its "point of greatest duration," that singular spot along every total solar eclipse centerline where the duration of totality is longer than anywhere else. That point is also the duration of totality "tipping point," meaning that the duration gradually increases along the centerline up until that point and then starts to decrease on the other side. In other words, for the 2024 eclipse, the duration of totality is all downhill in the U.S., with the longest durations in Texas and the shortest in Maine. Therefore, the path of totality in Texas will be considered a prime viewing destination on April 8. And since the point of greatest duration in Mexico is only a little more than 300 miles to the south of where the path of totality enters the U.S., the duration of totality on the centerline will only be a few seconds short of the eclipse maximum of 4 minutes and 28 seconds even a couple of hundred miles north of the border.
If the longest durations of totality in the U.S. wasn't enough, Texas is also widely considered to have the
best eclipse-day weather prospects in the country. More specifically, eclipse weather forecasting site
eclipsophile.com points out that, in Texas, "the north [or west] side of the track has a notably sunnier April climate than the south [or east]." In general, the farther south you are for this eclipse, the better your weather odds. And you can't get any farther south along the path of totality in the U.S. than Texas."