PORTLAND, Maine — The total solar eclipse is less than three weeks away and many have one question on their mind: Will we be able to see the eclipse if it is a cloudy day?
That's the million-dollar question right now. Unfortunately, it’s still too far away to make a forecast, so instead, let’s look back at the past so we can get a better idea of what that date has looked like in Maine in past years.
I researched the sky conditions that have occurred at 3:30 p.m. on April 8 for the past 50 years. That is the date and time when the total solar eclipse will occur.
Obviously, some years were cloudy, some had snow, and some had rain, but I took each year and simplified it: Would skies be clear enough for us to see the eclipse?
Historical cloud data is not kept quite as well as variables like temperature and wind. For this reason, we had to assume that if it was a cloudy day, they would have been thick enough to block the view.
What I found was that we only had clear conditions 19 out of the past 50 years. That means that statistically we only have a 38% chance of having a clear view of the eclipse.
But what does it mean if it's cloudy during the eclipse? Will we completely miss it?
I asked that question to Dr. Angela Speck, co-chair of the American Astronomical Society Solar Eclipse Task Force, and this was her answer:
"If it's really cloudy, it's if like dense cloud, then you're not going to see all of the cool stuff like the corona of the sun and planets during the eclipse. However, its still going to get dark. If there is light cloud its a little bit different. If there is light cloud one of the things that happens is as the shadow of the moon crosses the earth, it changes the temperature. The temperature can drop by up to about 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and so that also lowers the pressure and gives rise to breezes. And so those breezes, as the shadow is coming in, clear out light cloud."
Doctor speck said that if a breeze doesn't clear the thin clouds, you will still be able to see the eclipse through them, it just won't be quite as clear.
This all boils down to say that while there isn't a guarantee that we will have a clear view of the eclipse, we will still see the effects of it one way or another.
- Aaron